Equity-minded Faculty Workloads: What We Can and Should Do Now

This report summarizes the authors’ findings and insights learned from the Faculty Workload and Rewards Project (FWRP), a National Science Foundation ADVANCE-funded action research project. The FWRP worked with 51 departments and academic units to promote equity in how faculty work is taken up, assigned, and rewarded, drawing from theories of behavioral economics and the principles of equity-mindedness. Using a randomized experiment with treatment and control groups, we found that there are actions that academic units can take to promote workload equity. The treatment groups participated in a four-part workload intervention that included training on workload inequity, creating a faculty work activity dashboard, developing an equity action plan, and individual faculty professional development on managing time-use.