According to the Vermont Tech website, full-time faculty members have a workload of 12 credit hours per semester. This translates to 24 hours per academic year. Many classes at Vermont Tech are also taught by adjunct instructors. The website lists 79 full-time faculty and approximately 130 adjunct faculty. Courses are divided between full-time faculty and adjunct faculty. It is unclear what the adjunct faculty load versus the full-time load is, and this has caused controversy in the past.
On June 18, 1979, the Vermont State Colleges Faculty Federation brought a grievance against Vermont Technical College to the Vermont Labor Relations Board. Six full-time faculty members complained that they were being asked to work more than their normal individual workloads of 24 hours per academic year. They asked for back pay for this extra teaching load and alleged that an unfair labor practice had taken place. The Board upheld the grievance; however, it was successfully appealed. No back pay was approved.
Again in the 1980s, the issue of faculty at Vermont Technical College being expected to work extra hours by the president became an issue, when an adjunct faculty member complained that she was asked to teach a full-time load but denied full-time faculty status. Ultimately, the Vermont Labor Relations Board ruled to send the matter back to the college for collective bargaining. Currently the 24-hour per academic year workload is still on the books.
In a note on the Vermont Tech website, interim College President Pat Menchini states that "each year for the past two decades, 98 percent of Vermont Tech graduates have consistently found employment and/or continued their education." Since Vermont Tech prides itself on small class sizes and excellent student-to-faculty ratios (11-1), it appears that its students benefit from the hard work put in by the faculty and that a high faculty workload is the norm.