Merit-based increase approved for faculty

President John Haeger and Provost Liz Grobsmith have announced a merit-based salary increase for faculty and academic professionals for the 2007-08 year, effective July 2.

The plan calls for increasing salaries by the following percentages:

• 6.10 percent for highly meritorious
• 5.45 percent for meritorious
• 3.25 percent for satisfactory

The faculty salary increases will be implemented for the Aug. 31 paycheck. For those faculty paid over 12 months, the retroactive adjustment to July 2 will be included on the Sept. 14 paycheck.

"This salary increase is the most recent step in a multiyear plan to achieve one of our top strategic planning priorities, and that is to provide competitive compensation," said Haeger.

"We have advanced the competitiveness of our staff salaries over the last few years. Now we must focus on our faculty salaries, which are much further behind market. Faculty salaries have improved from the bottom of our peers in 2004 to the 11th percentile. But we have more to do in the coming years," he said.

In addition to the merit adjustments, the university also increased the amounts awarded for promotion to associate professor and to full professor using benchmarks from the College and University Professional Association.

The promotion amount for associate professor increased from $3,000 to $4,000, and the amount for promotion to full professor went from $4,000 to $7,000. The promotion increase for associate professors will be the larger of $4,000 or 85 percent of their CUPA discipline average salary. The promotion increase for full professor will be the larger of $7,000 or the amount required to achieve 82 percent of the CUPA median salary for a given discipline.

"The university is committed to bringing full professors to a minimum of 85 percent of their discipline average within two years of their promotion," Grobsmith said.

The university was able to direct additional funds beyond the state employee salary increase to faculty and academic professionals because of the 2006 enrollment increase, which provided more revenue in the 2007-08 budget.

The university will implement another compensation change in January to address faculty assigned inappropriate codes that define their academic discipline. These codes are based on a national classification system, known as the Classification of Instructional Programs. Market adjustments based on new CIP code placement will affect relatively few faculty, so most will not see changes to their salary in January.