Merit Award and Pay Raise

[sambaprof]

In our university, they give something like "Merit Recognition Award" on an annual basis resulting in about 30 faculty get $4000 added to base salary, 45 faculty get $3000 added to the base, 90 faculty get $2000 added to the base and about $140 faculty get  $1000 added to the base.

This is based on the performance in one (primary area) or two (primary and secondary area) among Teaching, Research and Service over last 3 years.

Since they did not had this program for last 3 years due to pandemic and I joined only three years back, this is my first experience with this award program. Since I  joined the university, Overall during last 3 years, I  got several grants worth $840K as PI and over $2 million as Co-PI in research and teaching grants, got above average teaching evaluations, several publications...  While there are few who brought in more than million dollars of external funding as PI, I was expecting at least $3000 award, if not $4000... However I  got only $2000 award, which is disappointing considering the expectations...

The process is such that the merit award applications will be reviewed  by the Dean first and the Dean's recommendations are provided to Provost. The provost then share the Dean's recommendations with the University Promotion and Review Committee... Then the University Promotion and Review Committee reviews the application and provides recommendations to the Provost and then Provost make the decision.

Please advise if it is a good idea  to reach out to the Dean by email to express the disappointment that I was expecting at least $3000 award if not $4000 award and check with him about the rubric that was used to grade the applicants, so that I can work towards improvement and get a better raise next year... Please let me know your thoughts...

[Parasaurolophus]

I don't imagine asking will win you any friends, or get you any useful information. If you have a faculty union, then presumably they have access to the rubric, if there is one; I'd ask them for it. It may even be in your faculty handbook (or the handbook may link you to it).

Since only 305 faculty get these awards, and since you got the raise that's at the middle of the pack, my guess is that the feedback would be that your performance was good but... middling, at least compared to all of the other applicants. So: perhaps you're on the high end for grant $, but not particularly remarkable when it comes to # of publications last year. Similarly, though your teaching evaluations are above average, that doesn't mean much in general, and it means less when compared to an applicant pool whose evaluations are all (or mostly) above average. You've said nothing about service, so presumably you didn't really tick that particular box for them.

But that's just me guessing. I have no experience with merit raises (we don't get them!).

[dismalist]

When things get serious, especially about cash, complaints alone don't cut the ice. Outside offers work the magic, one way or the other.

[Sun_Worshiper]

I don't imagine asking will win you any friends, or get you any useful information.

Sounds right to me.

I know it is frustrating, but in the grand scheme of things $2000 is not worth getting a reputation for being difficult or pissing off the dean. Probably better to let this one go, enjoy your raise, and keep performing at a high level. Maybe next year you'll get $4000 instead.

[ciao_yall]

In our university, they give something like "Merit Recognition Award" on an annual basis resulting in about 30 faculty get $4000 added to base salary, 45 faculty get $3000 added to the base, 90 faculty get $2000 added to the base and about $140 faculty get  $1000 added to the base.

This is based on the performance in one (primary area) or two (primary and secondary area) among Teaching, Research and Service over last 3 years.

Since they did not had this program for last 3 years due to pandemic and I joined only three years back, this is my first experience with this award program. Since I  joined the university, Overall during last 3 years, I  got several grants worth $840K as PI and over $2 million as Co-PI in research and teaching grants, got above average teaching evaluations, several publications...  While there are few who brought in more than million dollars of external funding as PI, I was expecting at least $3000 award, if not $4000... However I  got only $2000 award, which is disappointing considering the expectations...

The process is such that the merit award applications will be reviewed  by the Dean first and the Dean's recommendations are provided to Provost. The provost then share the Dean's recommendations with the University Promotion and Review Committee... Then the University Promotion and Review Committee reviews the application and provides recommendations to the Provost and then Provost make the decision.

Please advise if it is a good idea  to reach out to the Dean by email to express the disappointment that I was expecting at least $3000 award if not $4000 award and check with him about the rubric that was used to grade the applicants, so that I can work towards improvement and get a better raise next year... Please let me know your thoughts...

I would approach it by thanking the Dean for the raise, and asking about the rubric and decision process. Keep it about facts and learning and wanting to do more to serve the institution.

Since you are fairly new, the $2,000 is probably more about length of time at the institution and time to make major contributions, rather than your relative immediate performance.

[Ruralguy]

Truth is, you have no way of knowing exactly why you got the raise you got, but the most straightforward reason would be that a significant number of faculty have done even better with their combined publishing, grantsmanship, awards, teaching, and significant service. My inclination is to leave it alone, and then perhaps ask these questions of a slightly lower level person who you might know better (perhaps an associate or assistant Dean who has the ear of the Dean?).Even if you found out that the Provost used the "staircase method" or gave it to friends and relatives (both of which I doubt!), what would you really do about it in the short term? That being said, perhaps a number of people behind the scenes could urge the Dean and Provost to be more clear about the process, including, in general, criteria for granting the award (but prepared for the just to say "we give it to people who are excellent in all areas that are important to us").

[arcturus]

I can understand your disappointment that you did not get the maximum pay raise possible. However, I do not think it is likely to be constructive to say so to the Dean. Rather, if you follow through with your plan, you are likely to appear petulant or overly-entitled. Given that these raises have not been awarded over the past 3 years, there are likely many deserving recipients. It is possible to do good work, even excellent work, and still only be average amongst your peers.

As noted by others, if you reach out to the Dean at all, it should be to express your appreciation for being recognized and receiving a $2000 pay raise.

[clean]

How many are at the university?
It could be that the dean did his best, but that, across campus, (however that is done), others were higher ranked. 

Not that it should matter, but it could also be that there is an element of 'fairness' involved somewhere.  You are new, your salary would be, perhaps, higher than others who have 'suffered longer, with less', and it was their turn.  That you qualified for the raise you did, may actually be quite an accomplishment. 

Do you know of others in your college that got a bigger raise?  Was there performance indeed better and can you tell by how much?

We used to have such a system where the dean was given a pool of money to allocate.  Wisely (probably after being burned), he (and those that followed) simply took the pool and divided it by the number of faculty. 

[Ruralguy]

Clean (and all),

Our deans have done the same thing (evenly split the raise pool) for many years now. However, we do have a significant number of partially and fully endowed professorships. Actually, its a very large number considering we only have something like 75 tenured and tenure track faculty (and 20, but decreasing number, of  adjuncts, VAP's, etc.). Anyway, the process of selecting these differs somewhat because of how the donor may have said regarding selection, but most are selected by advise of a faculty committee (usually most have tenure and experience with T&P process) with final say given by Dean. Its the closest thing we have to "merit pay." For the select few who get the best fully endowed awards with huge salary tack-ons, its permanent merit pay.

[fizzycist]

Imagine instituting a policy that could alienate 80% of the faculty in favor of giving 20% an extra 1-2% raise! And I bet it costs a lot of admin time to try and do it "fairly".

Are there any studies out there about tiny merit pay? Could it really be that increased productivity from competition outweigh the jealousy and infighting?

OP, this is not worth your energy, you will be ok. If your frustration is about maximizing your salary, spend that energy applying for more grants and external positions. If this is about wanting respect from your Dean, I can't relate, but maybe just wait a couple years til the next one comes.

[Ruralguy]

I think generally that economists agree that "incentives matter," but there becomes a point at which its either too small to drive competition in  any serious way (be careful in concluding this for salary of a long time horizon worker, because its an additive effect and retirement benefits scale to salary too) or it becomes too much a burden for the people deploying the incentive (if admin gets too many complaints over "fairness", then it might not be worth the extra whatever----million dollars over the entire faculty?  100 more publications over the entire faculty? Slightly raised teaching evals and service?). I am sure Dismalist and others can comment.

[apl68]

Imagine instituting a policy that could alienate 80% of the faculty in favor of giving 20% an extra 1-2% raise! And I bet it costs a lot of admin time to try and do it "fairly".

When you put it that way, it does sound like an iffy idea.

[dismalist]

I think generally that economists agree that "incentives matter," but there becomes a point at which its either too small to drive competition in  any serious way (be careful in concluding this for salary of a long time horizon worker, because its an additive effect and retirement benefits scale to salary too) or it becomes too much a burden for the people deploying the incentive (if admin gets too many complaints over "fairness", then it might not be worth the extra whatever----million dollars over the entire faculty?  100 more publications over the entire faculty? Slightly raised teaching evals and service?). I am sure Dismalist and others can comment.

Yes, of course incentives matter. But the question of designing an incentive mechanism for use within firms is a thorny one. It's even thornier within universities. What is output? Can we measure it precisely? Can the scheme be gamed? Who owns the university? And on and on. Reflecting such difficulties, only roughly 50% of universities have incentive schemes. They differ from each other. This strongly suggests that a silver bullet has not been found.

[Ruralguy]

My impression is that you can probably come up with a reasonable cash incentive for a specific task, or even a specific grouping, but as the expected task to be rewarded grows to "everything" and the reward drops to less money than you would have made by tweaking investments and savings slightly, then the increased output, if its even measurable, probably reduces to negligible. Maybe this is just anecdotal bs, but my dean can probably get me to work on any specific thing for the summer (a very specific class, some task for admissions, analyzing institutional data, or gosh forbid, working on my own research exclusively) by giving me about 10K. It doesn't even need to be added to base. But I've turned down all of the "if you can help on weekend X, you'll get 300 bucks" or "Could you do this summer class? We'll give you 3000"   type of requests.

[AJ_Katz]

Over the years I've discovered that everyone thinks they deserve more merit.