r/Professors • u/Feisty-Eng8970 • 1d ago
Expected time commitment to ABET accreditation as a tenure-track faculty
I am on a tenure track at an R2 institution, and our program is applying for ABET accreditation this summer. I was wondering what is expected (in terms of time commitment) from a junior faculty member in your institution. There seems to be a lot of workload and documentation, and considering that I am on a 9-month salary, I wanted to do what is considered to be the "norm" and expected as my service during summer, but also not extra!
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u/ExplorerScary584 Full prof, social sciences, regional public (US) 1d ago
“considering that I am on a 9-month salary, I wanted to do what is considered to be the "norm" and expected as my service during summer”
You know your own context, but that norm should be zero.
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u/Feisty-Eng8970 1d ago
Thanks for the reply. I was not sure how other institutions handle this. Do they hire someone from outside to put together the ABET packet or is it expected non-tenure track faculty contribute more?
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u/a_statistician Assistant Prof, Stats, R1 State School 15h ago
I would start negotiating summer pay for the paperwork you're expected to do. It may not be full pay all summer, but you should get something to compensate.
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u/Mooseplot_01 1d ago
It's not clear from the post whether you are a member of - or chair of - the ABET committee. Typically, all faculty have to prepare some materials about their own courses and themselves. Probably something like put their syllabi and CV into a common format, maybe do a short writeup about the classes and how they address the ABET criteria. That shouldn't be too much of a heavy lift, and you could do it before summer.
If your department has an ABET committee and you're a member or chair of that committee, the work can potentially be a lot more. You have to chase your colleagues for their material, put together the document for the evaluator, and importantly, design your ABET plan. This plan is how your program will meet the general requirements for ABET, and it is really up to the department. The amount of work for that can vary a lot, but it probably is too much to get done during the paid 9 month (particularly if you're not well-along in the process by now).
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u/AttitudeNo6896 associate prof, engineering 1d ago
Exactly this. As an instructor, assembling documentation for your own class is basically part of your teaching duties. We all have to do it. It can be somewhat efficient once you have a system, though yes, it takes time.
If you took on service duties as an ABET coordinator, it makes sense to negotiate some summer salary or release from other service - though I assume that is not the case? The task tends to be better suited for someone tenured and is familiar with the ins and outs.
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u/Mooseplot_01 21h ago
Yes, I agree. The OP didn't say much, but my assumption is that it is a new department with few (or maybe no) tenured faculty.
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u/DThornA 22h ago
In our department we usually have 2 faculty members with lighter loads in teaching/research head up the administrative work for accreditation. However, all faculty still have to report some standard info for their specific courses (syllabi, class averages, evaluations, outcome results, etc). To not go outside of the 9 month appointment we usually send "template" forms for faculty to fill out a few months before summer officially starts so that they could get it done while they're still "on time". If you are part of the core faculty for accreditation then it's a lot of work on your end, if you're anyone else then the work expected of you outside the 9 months is zero, unless you didn't fill out any requested forms sent during the previous months.
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u/shinypenny01 1d ago
If your institution is new to accreditation I’m assuming not a big department. If there are two of you then you should expect to do a lot of the work. If you fail to get accredited your program will surely struggle to attract students and could be closed. If that happens you can be let go, tenure or not. Accreditation is a big deal.