By JunellH.B. No. 2780
A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
AN ACT
relating to standards for faculty teaching loads and class enrollment at public institutions of
higher education and to related funding formula adjustments.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
SECTION 1. Subchapter C, Chapter 61, Education Code, is amended by adding Sections
61.0571 and 61.0572 to read as follows:
Sec. 61.0571. STANDARDS FOR FACULTY WORKLOADS. (a) The board shall establish
minimum standards for classroom teaching loads for full-time professors, including assistant
professors, at general academic teaching institutions. The board shall adopt separate standards
for each major class of institution taking into account the role and mission of each institution, the
number and type of doctoral programs offered, and the institution's research activities. In
establishing the standards, the board shall consider practices in other states and shall solicit a
diversity of relevant information and recommendations from interested persons.
(b) Each year, the board shall collect from each general academic teaching institution
information on the classroom teaching workload of the institution's faculty and the institution's
level of compliance with the standards established under Subsection (a).
(c) In the formulas established under Section 61.059, the board shall provide for a reduction
in the amount of state funding for a general academic teaching institution for which the total
classroom teaching load of the faculty of professorial rank is less than the total classroom
teaching load for that faculty determined according to the standards established under Subsection
(a). The board shall make the reduction in proportion to the percentage by which the actual total
classroom teaching load falls short of the total classroom teaching load determined according to
the standards.
(d) Until the board establishes classroom teaching load standards under Subsection (a), the
following classroom teaching loads shall be used for purposes of this section, using the
institution classifications of the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching:
(1) two courses per professor per semester at a research institution;
(2) 2.5 courses per professor per semester at a doctoral institution; and
(3) 3.25 courses per professor per semester at a comprehensive institution.
Sec. 61.0572. MINIMUM CLASS ENROLLMENT STANDARDS. (a) For purposes of this
section, the minimum class enrollment standard for a general academic teaching institution is:
(1) 10 students for an undergraduate course; and
(2) five students for a graduate course.
(b) In the formulas established under Section 61.059, the board shall provide for a reduction
in the amount of state funding for a general academic teaching institution for each class in which
the number of students registered is less than the minimum standard prescribed by Subsection
(a). The board shall make the reduction in proportion to the percentage by which the actual class
enrollment falls short of the minimum standard.
(c) The board may exempt a class offered at a general academic teaching institution from the
reduction required by Subsection (b) if the board determines that a compelling or critical need
for the class exists regardless of the class enrollment.
SECTION 2. (a) This Act takes effect September 1, 1997.
(b) The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board shall adopt standards for classroom
teaching loads under Section 61.0571, Education Code, as added by this Act, to be in effect
beginning with the fall semester 1998.
(c) The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board shall incorporate the formula finding
adjustments required by Sections 61.0571(c) and 61.0572(b), Education Code, as added by this
Act, beginning with formulas applicable to the fiscal year that begins September 1, 2000.
SECTION 3. The importance of this legislation and the crowded condition of the calendars in
both houses create an emergency and an imperative public necessity that the constitutional rule
requiring bills to be read on three several days in each house be suspended, and this rule is
hereby suspended.