Field Directors

I'm 6 months into my role as a Practicum Director in an abolitionist-focused program.

We are looking to change from a Spring practicum start to a rolling-basis practicum.

For programs that currently accept students into practicum on a rolling basis, how does this work? What is your load as far as classes? What caps do you have on practicum seminars and/or supervisory groups, if you have them? How many other courses do you teach on top of practicum?

Thank you,

Hi Desiree:

I've been doing rolling admissions since 2014.  A few things I learned, we limited BSW to four times yearly, 2X in Fall (Fall I and 2) and twice in Summer (Summer 1 and 2).  We are a tri-semester system, with 8 week sessions each trimester.  We do not place BSW student in the Spring trimester. We place our traditional MSW students in Fall 1 and Summer 1 only.  And we place Advanced Standing and 2nd year MSW during Fall 1, Spring 1 and Summer 1 only.  We negotiated this with the Dean and admissions because the rolling admissions had us stressed to the max every term trying to place students constantly. 

Our MSW program has in excess of 1200 students and our BSW program has 500+ students so we are a large program.

To your other questions: 

Load for the director - I have full course load releases and no longer teach courses unless I volunteer.  The administrative side became too demanding and I negotiated with the dean to either be an administrator or a course instructor, but I couldn't do both well.  Luckily my Dean and Provost agreed.  I also no longer do placement activities, as the demands of overseeing the field division require all of my time and attention.

Load for asst. field directors (who do all of the placement activities).  We go by students, so once a field director has reach their student load quota, they have met their teaching load.  Most teach 3-5 courses yearly.  If working on a special project, they are granted course releases.  Since they also assist in the administrative roles of placing students, our workload has been reduced from that of a didactic faculty.

Seminar caps:

BSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 13

MSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 11

All full-time faculty provide supplemental supervision (as needed) to students enrolled in their course.  Full time faculty can teach 2 overloads if they desire in field or a didactic course.  Most do not opt to do so.  We have 5 full time field faculty and 3 field staff members who provide us with support to get the work done. 

Frankly, rolling admissions are great for the program and university.  However my field faculty are exhausted and often saturated with non-stop field responsibilities that never lull and that didactic faculty do not have on their plates.  There is a cost-benefit to rolling admission that is hard to find viable solutions for.  Great for student recruitment and retention.  Hard on field faculty who have a very different role as educators than didactic faculty.  Something to think about.  Talk with others who also do rolling admissions. I'm sure we will all sing the same song.  

Hope this has been helpful.

Sibyl

I'm 6 months into my role as a Practicum Director in an abolitionist-focused program.

We are looking to change from a Spring practicum start to a rolling-basis practicum.

For programs that currently accept students into practicum on a rolling basis, how does this work? What is your load as far as classes? What caps do you have on practicum seminars and/or supervisory groups, if you have them? How many other courses do you teach on top of practicum?

Thank you,

Hi Desiree:

I've been doing rolling admissions since 2014.  A few things I learned, we limited BSW to four times yearly, 2X in Fall (Fall I and 2) and twice in Summer (Summer 1 and 2).  We are a tri-semester system, with 8 week sessions each trimester.  We do not place BSW student in the Spring trimester. We place our traditional MSW students in Fall 1 and Summer 1 only.  And we place Advanced Standing and 2nd year MSW during Fall 1, Spring 1 and Summer 1 only.  We negotiated this with the Dean and admissions because the rolling admissions had us stressed to the max every term trying to place students constantly. 

Our MSW program has in excess of 1200 students and our BSW program has 500+ students so we are a large program.

To your other questions: 

Load for the director - I have full course load releases and no longer teach courses unless I volunteer.  The administrative side became too demanding and I negotiated with the dean to either be an administrator or a course instructor, but I couldn't do both well.  Luckily my Dean and Provost agreed.  I also no longer do placement activities, as the demands of overseeing the field division require all of my time and attention.

Load for asst. field directors (who do all of the placement activities).  We go by students, so once a field director has reach their student load quota, they have met their teaching load.  Most teach 3-5 courses yearly.  If working on a special project, they are granted course releases.  Since they also assist in the administrative roles of placing students, our workload has been reduced from that of a didactic faculty.

Seminar caps:

BSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 13

MSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 11

All full-time faculty provide supplemental supervision (as needed) to students enrolled in their course.  Full time faculty can teach 2 overloads if they desire in field or a didactic course.  Most do not opt to do so.  We have 5 full time field faculty and 3 field staff members who provide us with support to get the work done. 

Frankly, rolling admissions are great for the program and university.  However my field faculty are exhausted and often saturated with non-stop field responsibilities that never lull and that didactic faculty do not have on their plates.  There is a cost-benefit to rolling admission that is hard to find viable solutions for.  Great for student recruitment and retention.  Hard on field faculty who have a very different role as educators than didactic faculty.  Something to think about.  Talk with others who also do rolling admissions. I'm sure we will all sing the same song.  

Hope this has been helpful.

Sibyl

I'm 6 months into my role as a Practicum Director in an abolitionist-focused program.

We are looking to change from a Spring practicum start to a rolling-basis practicum.

For programs that currently accept students into practicum on a rolling basis, how does this work? What is your load as far as classes? What caps do you have on practicum seminars and/or supervisory groups, if you have them? How many other courses do you teach on top of practicum?

Thank you,

Hi Desiree,

Here at the University of Montana we developed and implemented our new online MSW program a few years ago. Although we were somewhat pushed to consider rolling admissions for practicum, we researched various models and after talking to various field ed programs consciously decided AGAINST rolling admissions. As Sibyl highlighted in her post, we discussed the potential impact of rolling admissions on faculty capacity, engagement with students and agencies, and above all burn out and fatigue. We start all of our practicums across all programs in the fall and students are all on the same fall and spring timeline. This is hugely helpful because our timelines, processes, communications etc. all align and our field ed team gets a breather over the summer when we support incoming students with their placement process. I could not imagine doing it any other way and am thankful that our administration supported our decision.

Best of luck with whatever path you choose!

KAT

Hi Desiree:

I've been doing rolling admissions since 2014.  A few things I learned, we limited BSW to four times yearly, 2X in Fall (Fall I and 2) and twice in Summer (Summer 1 and 2).  We are a tri-semester system, with 8 week sessions each trimester.  We do not place BSW student in the Spring trimester. We place our traditional MSW students in Fall 1 and Summer 1 only.  And we place Advanced Standing and 2nd year MSW during Fall 1, Spring 1 and Summer 1 only.  We negotiated this with the Dean and admissions because the rolling admissions had us stressed to the max every term trying to place students constantly. 

Our MSW program has in excess of 1200 students and our BSW program has 500+ students so we are a large program.

To your other questions: 

Load for the director - I have full course load releases and no longer teach courses unless I volunteer.  The administrative side became too demanding and I negotiated with the dean to either be an administrator or a course instructor, but I couldn't do both well.  Luckily my Dean and Provost agreed.  I also no longer do placement activities, as the demands of overseeing the field division require all of my time and attention.

Load for asst. field directors (who do all of the placement activities).  We go by students, so once a field director has reach their student load quota, they have met their teaching load.  Most teach 3-5 courses yearly.  If working on a special project, they are granted course releases.  Since they also assist in the administrative roles of placing students, our workload has been reduced from that of a didactic faculty.

Seminar caps:

BSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 13

MSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 11

All full-time faculty provide supplemental supervision (as needed) to students enrolled in their course.  Full time faculty can teach 2 overloads if they desire in field or a didactic course.  Most do not opt to do so.  We have 5 full time field faculty and 3 field staff members who provide us with support to get the work done. 

Frankly, rolling admissions are great for the program and university.  However my field faculty are exhausted and often saturated with non-stop field responsibilities that never lull and that didactic faculty do not have on their plates.  There is a cost-benefit to rolling admission that is hard to find viable solutions for.  Great for student recruitment and retention.  Hard on field faculty who have a very different role as educators than didactic faculty.  Something to think about.  Talk with others who also do rolling admissions. I'm sure we will all sing the same song.  

Hope this has been helpful.

Sibyl

I'm 6 months into my role as a Practicum Director in an abolitionist-focused program.

We are looking to change from a Spring practicum start to a rolling-basis practicum.

For programs that currently accept students into practicum on a rolling basis, how does this work? What is your load as far as classes? What caps do you have on practicum seminars and/or supervisory groups, if you have them? How many other courses do you teach on top of practicum?

Thank you,

Hi Kat,

What semesters are students admitted into the actual program? 

Hi Desiree,

Here at the University of Montana we developed and implemented our new online MSW program a few years ago. Although we were somewhat pushed to consider rolling admissions for practicum, we researched various models and after talking to various field ed programs consciously decided AGAINST rolling admissions. As Sibyl highlighted in her post, we discussed the potential impact of rolling admissions on faculty capacity, engagement with students and agencies, and above all burn out and fatigue. We start all of our practicums across all programs in the fall and students are all on the same fall and spring timeline. This is hugely helpful because our timelines, processes, communications etc. all align and our field ed team gets a breather over the summer when we support incoming students with their placement process. I could not imagine doing it any other way and am thankful that our administration supported our decision.

Best of luck with whatever path you choose!

KAT

Hi Desiree:

I've been doing rolling admissions since 2014.  A few things I learned, we limited BSW to four times yearly, 2X in Fall (Fall I and 2) and twice in Summer (Summer 1 and 2).  We are a tri-semester system, with 8 week sessions each trimester.  We do not place BSW student in the Spring trimester. We place our traditional MSW students in Fall 1 and Summer 1 only.  And we place Advanced Standing and 2nd year MSW during Fall 1, Spring 1 and Summer 1 only.  We negotiated this with the Dean and admissions because the rolling admissions had us stressed to the max every term trying to place students constantly. 

Our MSW program has in excess of 1200 students and our BSW program has 500+ students so we are a large program.

To your other questions: 

Load for the director - I have full course load releases and no longer teach courses unless I volunteer.  The administrative side became too demanding and I negotiated with the dean to either be an administrator or a course instructor, but I couldn't do both well.  Luckily my Dean and Provost agreed.  I also no longer do placement activities, as the demands of overseeing the field division require all of my time and attention.

Load for asst. field directors (who do all of the placement activities).  We go by students, so once a field director has reach their student load quota, they have met their teaching load.  Most teach 3-5 courses yearly.  If working on a special project, they are granted course releases.  Since they also assist in the administrative roles of placing students, our workload has been reduced from that of a didactic faculty.

Seminar caps:

BSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 13

MSW cap - for full time faculty is no more than 11

All full-time faculty provide supplemental supervision (as needed) to students enrolled in their course.  Full time faculty can teach 2 overloads if they desire in field or a didactic course.  Most do not opt to do so.  We have 5 full time field faculty and 3 field staff members who provide us with support to get the work done. 

Frankly, rolling admissions are great for the program and university.  However my field faculty are exhausted and often saturated with non-stop field responsibilities that never lull and that didactic faculty do not have on their plates.  There is a cost-benefit to rolling admission that is hard to find viable solutions for.  Great for student recruitment and retention.  Hard on field faculty who have a very different role as educators than didactic faculty.  Something to think about.  Talk with others who also do rolling admissions. I'm sure we will all sing the same song.  

Hope this has been helpful.

Sibyl

I'm 6 months into my role as a Practicum Director in an abolitionist-focused program.

We are looking to change from a Spring practicum start to a rolling-basis practicum.

For programs that currently accept students into practicum on a rolling basis, how does this work? What is your load as far as classes? What caps do you have on practicum seminars and/or supervisory groups, if you have them? How many other courses do you teach on top of practicum?

Thank you,

I'm 6 months into my role as a Practicum Director in an abolitionist-focused program.

We are looking to change from a Spring practicum start to a rolling-basis practicum.

For programs that currently accept students into practicum on a rolling basis, how does this work? What is your load as far as classes? What caps do you have on practicum seminars and/or supervisory groups, if you have them? How many other courses do you teach on top of practicum?

Thank you,