Hello, Tina, I can offer a complementary scenario. I came to my institution in a 60/40 split appointment (3 courses/year, 40% lab). I opted to move into full-time teaching when that became an option, and I must say that I find f/t teaching to be easier than the split appointment. But, I was not especially trained to run a "language lab." I enjoyed it, but it was a steep learning curve for me, more time-consuming than my courses, and I always felt like I gave nothing 100%. It's hard to bridge 19th c. French Studies with researching hardware & software, or helping a student get initiated with Chinese software. My husband now runs the lab (as interim director) and teaches several Italian courses (as an adjunct) each year. He is the only faculty member in the lab and runs a student staff of about 7. The lab is not as vital as it could be because it is run with a director only 16 hrs/week (although he typically spends much more time there). He is able to handle so much because he does not advise students and does not serve on committees. Moreover, he has taught all of his courses at least twice, and only adds new ones as he wishes (as an adjunct, he has flexibility that others may not). The lab remains attached to a tenure line in French, so once my sabbatical is over, a tenure-track colleague in French will be at the helm in the lab. I can see the administrative wisdom in splitting a line in order to preserve it (a line in the languages will not be cut because we will always need a director for the center). However, it is a fairly untenable situation, given how much is expected of a new faculty member. I would be very circumspect about accepting this scenario, especially as it may become a norm. Of course, feel free to contact me off-list if you have other questions. [log in to unmask] Best wishes, Tammy Tammy Berberi, Ph.D. Assistant Professor of French U Minnesota, Morris http://www.morris.umn.edu/academic/french Office: Humanities 216 [log in to unmask] tel 320.589.6264 fax 320.589.6253 Mailing address: Division of Humanities 600 East Fourth Street Morris, MN 56267 *********************************************** LLTI is a service of IALLT, the International Association for Language Learning (http://iallt.org/), and The Consortium for Language Teaching and Learning (http://www.languageconsortium.org/). Join IALLT at http://iallt.org. Otmar Foelsche, LLTI-Editor ([log in to unmask]) ***********************************************