An optimization-based study of personell time allocation in a brazilian public university to prevent faculty overload crisis

Faculty time allocation in higher education Institutions is a problem commonly reported in the literature. In this context, the workload dilemma is finding balance amongst the academic demands (e.g., teaching, research, extension, administration, preparation). To address this problem, this paper reports an illustrative application of goal programming to faculty time allocation in a particular case in a Brazilian public university. The optimization model specified considers three scenarios for analyzing the impacts of work hours distribution by the head of the department. The allocation is impacted by managerial preferences and the 40-week regimental journey. The illustrative application studied a department composed of 18 permanent professors. As a result, when undergraduate programs have priority in allocation, the faculty expansion requires at least six and at most seven new positions. However, when the priority changes to graduate programs the hiring requirements range from six to eleven new positions. The scenarios illustrated that despite the priority shifts, new personnel must be acquired to attend to the demand, leading to increases in the departmental expenses. By the end of this paper, research opportunities and managerial implications are presented.