Once per year in the administrative period, the average weekly hours of service in the measurement period are calculated for each adjunct using a “reasonable method.” The university will use the “look-back measurement method.” Per the Federal Register,

The proposed regulations provide a method, referred to as the look-back measurement method, under which employers may determine the status of an employee as a full-time employee during a future period (referred to as the stability period) based upon the hours of service of the employee in a prior period (referred to as the measurement period).25

In the administrative period, the Office of Human Resources will evaluate adjunct hours of service during the measurement period to determine the appropriate actions to take for benefits administration in the stability period. Any part-time faculty employee (i.e., adjunct faculty member) averaging 30 or more hours of service during the measurement period will be contacted by Human Resources to review health insurance coverage options for the subsequent stability period.

Faculty workload is covered in Section 2.11 of the Faculty Handbook, but that Handbook does not distinguish any specific duties associated with KYSU Online/Global from general faculty work completed in support of the traditional programs. Additionally, given the KYSU Online Faculty Workload Policy,26 which prohibits full-time faculty from using online course load to satisfy their full-time teaching load obligations (apart from pre-approval from the Provost), further guidance is needed to relate online faculty workloads to the existing framework used for residentially-based programs. Online courses are offered in subterms; the compressed course delivery timelines impact faculty workload, which requires guidance beyond the Faculty Handbook. Moreover, additional guidance is needed to track the adjunct hours of service for benefits administration.27

Full-time faculty workload at Kentucky State University traditionally has been measured in credit hours for course instruction or administrative release and in workdays for various aspects of faculty service and overload. Both credit hours and workdays relate to approximations of faculty time spent working in a semester or contract period. These approximations of time (whether hours or workdays) are predicated on the relationship between course credit hours and time spent in academic engagement with students during a semester, which is a minimum of 15 weeks of academic engagement in a semester. The table below presents this system of values and assumptions used in credit hour and time-based faculty workload calculations at Kentucky State University.

Quantity Unit Formula / Explanation