When it comes to understanding how much a faculty member is involved in teaching, UC experts say it's more complicated than just counting courses.

Illumination will come this spring when a UC task force releases long-awaited findings on faculty instructional activity. While this preliminary report is in immediate response to a 2000 state audit that called upon the UC system to clarify its definitions of faculty teaching activity, it is also in response to an ongoing dialogue on the nature of faculty instruction in the UC system.

For years Sacramento lawmakers have asked whether the university's faculty give adequate attention to the teaching mission. And UC faculty themselves have asked how completely their activities are reported.

"It's important for the UC to assure its constituencies that our faculty members take their teaching roles extremely seriously," said Patricia Turner, vice provost for undergraduate studies and one of 17 faculty, administrators and staff from UC campuses on the task force. "This is a necessary step to redress the deficiencies in the state audit of 2000. We hope to better reflect the range and breadth of instructional activities."

Through its rigorous scrutiny, Turner said, the UC's Implementation Task Force on Instructional Workload Recom-mendations seeks to clarify the issue for the state Legislature.

Draft results are expected as early as May or June at the latest.

While the state audit focused on "primary" courses alone, the UC task force has developed a new university-wide set of 18 faculty instructional categories that cover a broad range of activities -- large lecture classes, fieldwork, tutorials, and individualized study, to name a few.

Campuses are currently classifying their courses into the 18 categories and compiling the results to show the range of instructional activities.

The findings may prove valuable as the UC system forges a new partnership agreement with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Historically, these agreements are a key element in determining the level of state funding UC receives.

Turner said the final results will be available later in the summer or fall. In light of the current fiscal situation, she described UC government relations officials as "eager" to have the report on teaching activity in hand as they continue to make the case for the UC budget.

"Now is an ideal time to examine how we measure performance in UC higher education," Turner said.

"This will help all of us explain in quantitative detail the instructional role of our faculty in educating our highly valued students."

Another audit finding was that a number of courses taught by ladder-rank faculty members had enrollments of only one or two students. Auditors suggested that some classes of such small size might more properly be classified as independent studies, not primary classes.

Bruce Madewell, chair of the Academic Senate at UC Davis, welcomes a deeper understanding of faculty instruction.

He said that lecturers' courses were not included in the instructional report that was used to prepare the state audit. Also, the audit did not take into account the existence of independent study courses, which incur significant faculty time.

UC is meeting the commitment asked of it by the Legislature and is working on improvements to undergraduate instruction, Madewell said.

"We have continued to increase courses taught by regular rank faculty over the past decade, and we will follow the progress of the task force with interest."

He said the UC system actually comes out ahead on the issue when compared to other institutions:

• The average time for a UC Davis undergraduate to earn his or her degree is about 4.2 years, a better mark than comparable institutions.
• The number of undergraduate degrees awarded per ladder-ranked faculty full-time equivalent at UC Davis is 4.3, compared to 1.6 at similar private universities and 3.3 at similar public institutions.
• The number of all degrees (bachelor's, master's and doctoral) awarded per ladder-ranked faculty FTE at UC Davis is 5.8, compared to 4.8 at similar private universities and 5.5 at similar public institutions.
• 74 percent of UC students graduate within six years, compared to 69 percent at other public universities and 78 percent at private universities.

Madewell also pointed out the very high peer review rankings that all UC campuses receive in publications such as U.S. News and World Report, saying, "We look pretty good in comparison."

With members on the task force, the Academic Senate is deeply involved in the dialogue on the subject, he said. It's important, he added, to measure teaching efforts, especially at a time of increasing UC student enrollment and expanded year-round instruction.

The irony, Madewell noted, is that as state lawmakers are cutting back funding for the UC system, the Legislature seems to be attempting to "micromanage" the institution. And the attempt to classify all aspects of instructional workload is time-consuming.

"Most colleges and universities don't track this information to this level of detail," Madewell said, "and if they do it's not even available for scrutiny."

Madewell said the Senate has "reservations" that the workload study will not put enough emphasis on graduate student instruction, which, he said, is a more intensive experience than undergraduate instruction for faculty members at large research institutions such as UC Davis.

Al Harrison, a psychology professor, is working on the Davis review to help give it a "faculty" perspective.

"Those of us who teach at the University of California or other major research universities have a different set of instructional responsibilities than our colleagues who teach at state universities and colleges," Harrison said.

He explained that in addition to lecturing in the classroom UC faculty members teach in the laboratory, studio and in the field.

"We provide advanced training for graduate students and we mentor postdocs," Harrison said. "Any reporting system that does not include the full array of our instructional activities misinforms the Legislature and the public and is a major disservice to ourselves. The new reporting procedures should eliminate confusion by revealing the true scope of our teaching contributions."