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Merit Equity Pool to help "Loyal Faculty"
2 Mar 2005
Good news! Responding in part to AAUP's State of the Faculty report on "Shortchanging the Loyal
Faculty," the College of Arts and Science is creating a "Merit Equity Pool" that will provide
funds to improve the salaries of some of the faculty who have suffered the effects of salary
compression/inversion. Here is the message that Dean David Hodge is sending to A&S department
chairs.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Wed, 2 Mar 2005 07:16:24 -0800
From: David Hodge <hodge@u.washington.edu>
To: Chairs <Chairs@ascomp.washington.edu>
Cc: Admins <Admins@ascomp.washington.edu>
Subject: Merit Equity Pool - please forward
Dear Colleagues,
As I described at our quarterly meeting yesterday, we are proceeding with our plans to provide a
merit equity pool every year, beginning this year. We are committed to providing a minimum of
$100k each year, more when we can, in order to address some of our most challenging salary
issues. While this pool will not solve our salary issues, it provides another way for us to
respond to some of our most pressing needs.
David
College of Arts and Sciences Merit Equity Pool
The cumulative effect of low or no merit increases over the past few years has been to sharply
increase the compression of mid-career and senior faculty salaries. It has not been possible
for departments to make much, if any, differential allocation of merit to reward faculty who are
highly meritorious and poorly paid. The only alternatives for significant salary adjustments
have been the one-time unit adjustment funds for a limited number of departments or responses to
outside offers. While we will continue to compete for faculty who have outside offers, we find
the lack of alternatives for salary adjustments to be unacceptable. Even moderate-to-good
salary adjustments will not be enough to address the most egregious discrepancies in merit and
salary that exist within the College.
In 2003, The College Budget Advisory Committee recommended that the College adopt the two
percent merit increase, extra merit, unit adjustments, and individual equity adjustments as
complementary forms of compensation. We will continue to lobby hard for all of these, but we
believe that for the foreseeable future, it is imperative that the College commits itself to
offering some resources for individuals who suffer from exceptionally large discrepancies
between their salaries and their merit.
Thus it is the intention of the College to offer each year, starting this year (2005), a pool of
money for merit equity. We anticipate, assuming the University has provided the two percent
merit, that the College will make a pool of at least $100,000 available each year for such
cases. Departments will be encouraged to submit the cases of one or two individuals for
consideration. It is expected that most salary increases will be between $5,000 and $10,000 per
individual, a sum that will substantially improve, but not likely solve, the exceptional salary
disparities of those chosen. Departments will use approved procedures to evaluate those
individuals to be put forward. In addition to the annual merit review, departments may choose
to select the individuals to be nominated by following their adopted guidelines for
counter-offers. Final selection of the individuals will be made in the Dean's Office.
If no new funds are available in a given year to establish the equity merit pool, the College
will cut other parts of the base budget, including, if necessary, the elimination of faculty
lines. If funds are available, consideration will be given to increasing the size of the pool
so that more individuals may be helped.
3/2/05
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<<merit equity pool - Arts and Sciences.doc>>
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David Hodge
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
University of Washington
Seattle, WA 98195-3765
206-543-5340 Fax 206-543-5462
Professor, Department of Geography
http://www.artsci.washington.edu
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