Teaching Load

When I was hired, I was so glad to have a job and a little research money that I didn't think about or negotiate teaching load. I carry 24 Semester Hours per year, full time, as does everyone in this institution that are full time. Many of my colleagues are three-quarter time, financed by themselves. There's another language that Universities use and that is a "4-4" load. It took me a bit of bravery to ask what that meant. It assumes that your courses are 3 credit hours each, therefore 12 SH for two semesters is 4 classes + 4 classes. Since scientists teach labs (at least in my institution), it doesn't break down to 4 classes. I am teaching 1 course that has lectures twice a week and 3 lab sections= 6 SH. And I teach another course with twice a week lectures and one lab section = 4 SH. And then a three lecture a week course, no labs = 3 SH. So next semester, I will have 11 SH to make a total of 24 SH. This is a relatively heavy load compared to other institutions. And I'm involved in stuff I don't get loading for. For example, a course is not being run this year that normally runs in the fall. But students want to take it independent study. Guess who will none-the-less be active in assessment for that course. Yes me. I give myself 1 pretend SH for that. It would be nice to scale up my salary according to all of my pretend SHs, then I'd be rich! Hold, on, if I could do that, I would just finance a load reduction for myself!