Salary Recommendations

The standard increase should be recommended for faculty members meeting the high expectations appropriate to Notre Dame as an international teaching-and-research university. No increase or a less-than-standard increase should be recommended for any faculty member who is not meeting expectations. Additional adjustments should be recommended where the chair believes there are equity concerns or extraordinary merit. Each year, the University Budget Group determines the standard faculty raise pool. Additional funding is reserved at the decanal level for three purposes: first, for promotions; second, for persons who have performed in truly distinctive ways during the past year (adjustments for extraordinary performance); and third, for persons whose salaries over time have not kept pace with their performance (equity/excellence adjustments).

Chairpersons should base their recommendations on fair and thorough evaluations of a faculty member’s performance over the past year. Even if a committee or the CAP is involved in the annual review, only a chairperson may make salary recommendations. Recommendations should be submitted in advance of the scheduled salary meeting and should provide enough narrative background (e.g., number of publications or performances, venues, quantitative and qualitative information on teaching, some indication of the quality of departmental citizenship) to justify recommendations. In order to provide a check for general impressions, many chairs assign to each of the three areas appropriate percentages and then develop for each area an appropriate rating on a scale, which might include such categories as superior, excellent, very good, standard (good), substandard, and unacceptable.

Here is one model: Begin by listing the assigned weights for all faculty, e.g., teaching, research, and service at 40%, 40%, 20% or 45%, 45%, 10%. Make sure that the percentages are correct. For example, a DUS with a two-course reduction might be evaluated by 20%, 40%, 40%. A tenured faculty member on leave for one of the semesters under consideration might be evaluated on a 20%, 70%, 10% basis. A long-term associate professor who teaches an extra course in lieu of research might be evaluated by 60%, 20%, 20%. Assign a numerical value to each of the six categories above for the performance of each faculty in the three areas (superior=5, excellent=4, very good=3, standard=2, substandard=1, and unacceptable=0). You may wish to work through each area separately rather than to work through the list by faculty. This will give the chairperson a clearer lens for making comparative judgments about performance in each area. Multiply the number of the score by the percentage of the weight of that area for each individual faculty member. The factor that you use to multiply is the percentage that you have assigned: 40%=.4, 20%=.2, etc. Remember that the total of the factors by which you multiply must add up to 1, e.g., .4 + .4 + .2=1, .45 + .45 + .1=1, .4 + .2 + .4=1, or .7 + .2 + .1=1. Once you have multiplied the numbers, add the total for all three and list the faculty in a descending order on a scale of 5 to 0. It is a good idea to do this solely by the numbers at first. Once you have established your list, work through it carefully and ask if there are any surprises. Work through any surprises to make sure that the evaluation has been fair and impartial.

Here is an example of the exercise. If we take the four scenarios above, we would have the following. Remember % = percentage of the weight in the evaluation, S=score, and WS=weighted score. For the sake of the evaluation, we will use different scores since faculty will likely score differently.