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  • Release Time and Double Dipping

    By Dean Dad July 17, 2008 9:55 pm

    If you're a full-time faculty member, and you get a courseload reduction in exchange for taking on some extra non-classroom assignment – be it chairing a department, working on a self-study, or whatever – are you 'double dipping' if you then teach the released course anyway for extra pay?

    I've always thought not, but some folks around here are quite adamant that you are.

    The argument that it's double dipping rests on a literal reading of 'course reduction.' At most cc's, the standard f-t teaching load is fifteen credits, which typically means five classes in most disciplines. (Disciplines with lots of lab or studio time work out differently.) Say you get three credits, or one class, subtracted from your load in order to make room for some extra task. So far, nothing extraordinary; the true cost to the college is what they'll have to pay the adjunct who picks up the class you aren't teaching. Since adjuncts are paid so poorly, that's not very much.

    Suppose now that instead of dropping the released class, you agree to teach it yourself on top of everything else you're doing, in exchange for extra pay in the amount of what an adjunct would have made. So if an adjunct would have made $2000 for the class, you make an extra $2000. From the college's perspective, the money is the same either way, so financially it's a wash. Whether you get the two grand or the adjunct does, the bottom line for the college is the same.

    (I know that's not entirely true, since retirement account contributions are usually percentages of pay, but we're talking very low numbers here.)

    In effect, the college is getting full-time faculty to pick up small administrative tasks at adjunct rates. That's a pretty good deal for the college. You'd think that, from an institutional perspective, this would be a no-brainer.

    Apparently not.

    I've heard arguments recently that release time shouldn't count towards overloads, since that turns one benefit (time) into two (time and money). So if you get three credits of release time, you shouldn't be allowed to teach the full fifteen. Some journalists seem to hold this view, judging by the fairly cavalier use of a loaded term like 'double dipping.' The double dipping charge only makes sense if you don't include the money you would have paid someone else to pick up the class. If you're running the class anyway, someone has to teach it, and whether it's Bob or Jen who gets the adjunct rate makes no financial difference.

    I must be missing something.

    Wise and worldly readers – am I missing something here? How does this work on your campus?

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Comments on Release Time and Double Dipping

  • Double Dipping?
  • Posted by former cc pres on July 18, 2008 at 9:50am EDT

  • Sounds to me like someone is trying to lay the groundwork for the next collective bargaining session. The term double-dipping is used to give the issue a negative image and draw attention to itself. I think the real issue is that the faculty has decided that 15 credits is all they can handle with quality. If you would increase their pay pro-rata for teaching more, they might change their minds about that, and adjunct/overload pay usually isn't pro-rata. Also, I suggest that the question of "overload" be on an ANNUAL basis, or else you really can get into double-dipping. And, another view, why not just pay extra with a separate "supplemental" contract for the extra duties one-at-a-time, rather than the fuzzy chaos of "released time"?

  • Double dip or Remuneration choice
  • Posted by Skip Allis on July 18, 2008 at 10:25am EDT

  • Seems to me that this is not double dipping since they are not being paid twice for the same thing. It really sounds like the faculty member is making the choice to take a monetary compensation for the extra work instead of time - in an indirect way. It seems like it would make sense to offer that sort of choice up front, although there might be administrative reasons to go the course release route instead.

  • Call it a stipend
  • Posted by John on July 18, 2008 at 11:05am EDT

  • If the faculty member has a course reduction and then teaches the course, on its face, it could appear to be double dipping. But if you call it a stipend, the problem disappears. That's why I think it makes sense to offer the faculty member the choice of course reduction or a stipend.

  • Posted by J. Larkin on July 19, 2008 at 2:35pm EDT

  • If the faculty member is able to handle a full teaching load plus the administrative task, why go through the hoops of releasing him or her from a course, substituting the other task, then rehiring him or her to teach the course? Leave the course load alone and offer some extra $$ for the extra work.

    Otherwise, it looks an awful lot like the release time is leisure time.

  • Don't try that on a Federal grant
  • Posted by Anti-hypocrisy advocate on July 21, 2008 at 10:05pm EDT

  • Principal investigators on Federal grants, and other faculty participants in Federally-sponsored grant projects, must account to the government for the promised portion of their time devoted to the grant.

    Shenanigans of this nature are, indeed, done all of the time -- but don't try it with the Federal government which won't find the game-playing congruent with the concept of claimed release-time and time devoted to the grant project.

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