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Policy Statement
Faculty are compensated for their contributions to teaching and advising, research and scholarship, and service to the institution and the state/region/nation/other nations, as well as their professions. Total compensation includes annual base salary plus fringe benefits, including retirement, health and dental coverage, and life and disability insurance. In some instances, annual base salary is augmented through internal sources, such as overload teaching, or from external sources such as research funds or approved external consulting.
Initial annual base salary is negotiated at the time of hire, with floors established for the instructor and assistant professor ranks only. Increases to annual base salary for faculty occur in the following ways:
- through annually determined merit increases;
- through acceptance of a retention offer that includes an increase;
- in conjunction with a promotion in rank and/or the awarding of indefinite tenure; or
- in conjunction with an honorary or endowed title.
For many faculty, annual base salary may be supplemented with summer school or other internal summer employment, such as grant research. Annual base salary may also be supplemented internally during one's contract period through means such as extension teaching. Normally, new salaries go into effect for A base faculty on July 1 and for B base faculty on September 16 of each year.
The salary determination process must provide an objective unbiased evaluation of each faculty member following a thorough review of their work. The process must encourage continued good or improved performance, which in turn, may be rewarded by the compensation system.
A. Criteria for Annual Salary Increases and Promotion
Any salary determination process at the University of Minnesota must be nondiscriminatory. Initial salary offers, periodic increases, and retention offers may not be based on considerations related to the race, color, creed, religion, national origin, sex, sexual preference, marital status, public assistance status, veteran status, or age of the person being considered.
The criteria for determining salary increases must be similar to those used for promotion and tenure. The tenure and promotion regulations of the University provide the following instructions which form the framework within which salary decisions are made: (See Board of Regents Policy: Faculty Tenure, sections 7.11, 7.12, 9.2, and 5.5, and Administrative Procedures for Reviewing Candidates for Tenure and/or Promotion: Tenure-Track and Tenured Faculty).
B. Faculty Involvement
Faculty participation in the discussions surrounding criteria and procedures for salary increase determination is essential to maintaining an equitable and collegial environment. (For the purposes of salary discussion and determination, the relevant academic unit is the departmental or budgetary unit, whichever is smaller.) With the administrator of each unit, the faculty must have the opportunity to develop the criteria for, and the format of, the process through which annual salary increases are determined, including for those who hold endowed chairs. The process determined through consultation may include faculty participation in the judgments regarding compensation changes as a committee of the whole or through a salary committee consisting in whole or in part of elected members. The documents that describe these criteria, formats, and processes will be shared with the college dean, campus chancellor and vice chancellors, the Vice President of Health Sciences, as appropriate, and the Executive Vice President and Provost. This process must include the provision that the unit head meet with and review the performance of each faculty member individually, at least once per year. The sessions will will include a review of the past year's performance and offer suggestions for enhancing productivity, where appropriate. Units may choose to conduct more in depth evaluations on a periodic basis (e.g. 4 or 5 years) that would include outside evaluations.
C. Allocation Format
Each year the annual salary increase pool for meritorious performance will be distributed based on the criteria specified in Board of Regents Policy: Faculty Tenure and appropriate departmental faculty evaluation documents.
Unsatisfactory performance, which is documented and communicated to the individual involved, will serve as justification for withholding an individual's increase.
This policy does not apply to any across-the-board component of salary increases.
D. Promotion Increase
Promotion from assistant professor to associate professor and from associate professor to professor will be accompanied by an extraordinary recurring increase in base salary. These amounts are in addition to the annual increase given for meritorious performance. The amounts will be adjusted annually to reflect inflation using the Higher Education Price Index. It will be the responsibility of the Executive Vice President and Provost to identify the amounts each year and to communicate those amounts to the deans (or equivalent unit heads). The Provost’s Office will, after calculating the increases, round the results to the nearest $50 or $100, and no particular ratio between the two promotion increments need be maintained. The deans will set aside funding for promotional increases separate from funding normally set aside for merit and retention purposes. Deans and chancellors may institute higher minima but are required to use consistent and equitable procedures when granting these increases.
E. Other Provisions
- A standing administrative and faculty compensation committee (including representatives of the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs will examine and make recommendations on policies such as salary levels in the University as a whole, salary disparity among units, minimum salary levels for associate and full professors, and salary compression.
- Goals and expectations for endowed chairs and professorships must be established in each college or campus by the dean, vice chancellor, or chancellor and a committee of faculty from the unit. These goals and expectations must be used as the basis for review of the performance of individuals who hold endowed chairs and professorships.
- The Executive Vice President and Provost will receive an annual report from each college and campus regarding the endowed chairs and will provide a summary report to the Senate Committee on Faculty Affairs.
Reason for Policy
The University of Minnesota provides compensation to faculty members in the form of salary and other benefits. The policy provides information about salary compensation for tenure and promotion and annual pay increases, and faculty involvement in the process. This policy also supports Board of Regents Policies: Faculty Tenure and Employee Compensation and Recognition.