Interim UW system policy on teaching workload published

Over the next several weeks, UW-Madison will develop its own interim policy based on the System-wide policy.

The Universities of Wisconsin has released an interim instructional workload policy. This follows the December approval of Regent Policy Document 20-25 by the Wisconsin legislature's Joint Committee on Employment Relations (JCOER).

Over the next several weeks, UW-Madison will develop its own interim policy based on the System-wide policy. The Ad Hoc Instructional Workload Advisory Group and campus stakeholders, including deans and governance groups, will be actively engaged in the process.

Subsequently, schools and colleges will tailor their own policies, customizing details to fit specific fields and disciplines. This process will be repeated in many instances at the department level as well, following school and college updates.

The policy development and implementation process will require significant effort across all schools, colleges and departments. That said, we believe we will be able to develop policies that allow us to remain competitive across our wide range of fields and disciplines, and that permit us to recognize, appropriately, the variety of ways that teaching and learning operate across our world-class institution.

2025 Wisconsin Act 15, which takes effect September 1, 2026, stipulates minimum credit requirements for faculty and instructional academic staff and calls for transferability of general education credits.

Additionally, Act 15 established an annual appropriation for the Universities of Wisconsin to help attract faculty in high-demand fields, including enhancing viewpoint diversity on our campus. The plan for distributing these funds across campuses has been approved. Implementation details for UW-Madison will be shared in the coming months.

Updates will continue to be provided as they are available.