Institutions granting 4-year or higher degrees were asked in 1970-71 to supply basic information about faculty load policies and practices. Responses were received from 1,101 institutions that employed 222,053 faculty. The most frequently reported base used to define faculty load is the semester hour, followed by the quarter hour and contact hour. The mean and median normal load is 12 semester hours for faculty teaching undergraduate courses in the institutions reporting faculty load policies in semester hours, and for those institutions where faculty load is expressed in quarter or contact hours the mean normal load is 13 hours and the median is 12 hours. The mean and median maximum load teaching undergraduate courses is 14 semester hours or 15 quarter or contact hours. The mean normal teaching load for faculty teaching graduate courses is 11 semester, quarter or contact hours, and the median normal load is 9 semester or 10 quarter or contact hours. The mean maximum teaching load for faculty teaching graduate courses is 11 semester, quarter or contact hours, and the median maximum load is 12 semester or quarter hours and 11 contact hours. (HS)