The start of the relaunched Bachelor program “BaWiSo-Neu” in winter semester 23/24 has had numerous effects, some of which were obviously not anticipated. On the one hand, students of the “old” program are noticeably more active and flock to the various courses much more eagerly than in previous semesters. However, the changes to the introductory and orientation phase as part of BaWiSo new curriculum have resulted in an even higher number of active students. Almost twice as many students as expected already completed the introductory and orientation phase and are now understandably pushing into the courses of the CBK. On the one hand, this development is positive in view of the relevance of students’ activity for WU's financing; on the other hand, these circumstances will lead to an acute need for more courses in the current semester and likely also in the coming semesters. In any case, WU must react immediately in order to prevent faculty from being overburdened. Beyond immediate short-term measures, there is certainly a need for an adequate resource capacity planning for the coming semesters.

The short-term solutions currently communicated within the university are, on the one hand, increasing the size of groups and, on the other hand, offering additional courses by internal and external teaching staff, increasingly also in the Winter and Summer University. Supplementary, we would like to point out the regulations that nevertheless must be respected.

Extent of teaching load and maximum limits on teaching

For internal teaching staff, the Collective Bargaining Agreement for universities (KV) clearly specifies the limits for teaching (based on full-time employment of 40 hours per week!) for the various personnel categories:

For Teaching and Research Associates with part-time employment of 30 hours per week, these limits are – depending on contract duration - reduced to:

It should be noted that the Summer University counts towards the summer semester and the Winter University towards the winter semester.

It is also important to remember that if you teach more than your contractual teaching commitment (which will be less than the maximum teaching load mentioned above), you will be entitled to a teaching allowance (details here). However, the maximum teaching load should never be exceeded. This is particularly important for pre-docs, but also for post-docs during the qualification phase, as otherwise there is a risk that the required research activities will suffer from an excessive teaching.

Permissible teaching periods

Moreover, these limits on the maximum teaching are only one of the constraints that need to be taken into account when dealing with the current situation. If additional courses are to be offered, this will also require an increas in room capacity. As the availability of auditoriums can already be problematic at “normal” times, we take the current exceptional situation as an opportunity to reiterate that  teaching can only take place within the agreed working hours or on the agreed working days of employees and, in accordance with the provisions of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, only between 8am and 9pm from Monday to Friday. If teaching is to be held at other times, this is only permitted on a voluntary basis and at the express request of the teacher. Specific details can be found here.

Remuneration of external lecturers

The increased use of external lecturers to cope with the current situation is to be supported from the point of view of the internal teaching staff, who have been under massive pressure for several years, firstly due to the Corona pandemic and its effects on teaching at WU, and then due to fundamental changes as part of the Canvas migration. However, some of the departments affected will be wondering how these external lecturers are to be found. Since the remuneration of external lecturers, who can only be hired on the basis of a freelance service contract due to their main employment outside WU, has not been increased in almost ten years, fewer and fewer interested externals are actually willing to teach at WU. Without a long overdue valorization of the remuneration for freelance employees, there is a justified concern that the massive increase in teaching load due to the unexpected students’ activity will fall on internal teaching staff.

In conclusion, for the sake of everyone at WU, we hope that together we will overcome these challenging times. Problems that arise from the current situation can be reported to the Academic Staff Council at wiss.betriebsrat@wu.ac.at.

^22.03.2024

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