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Date: January 9, 2008 Important Due Date: February 1 Dear Colleagues: As in previous years, we plan to follow a two-stage process for the review of faculty salaries in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Once again, a significant fraction of the total funds available for increases in faculty salaries will be distributed in the first stage of this process. At the second stage, chairs will have a pool to divide among the tenured faculty and another pool, at a slightly higher percentage, to distribute to nontenured faculty. In this first stage I am asking you to review the current distribution of salaries in your department and to recommend any special structural increases you think appropriate in order that salaries better reflect scholarly distinction, teaching effectiveness, and service to the department and University. The recently submitted Faculty Activity Reports, in which faculty members describe their undergraduate and graduate teaching loads, recent publications, service to Yale and the profession, and honors and awards, should be an important basis for your consideration. This is also an opportunity to redress inequities, if any, in the salary structure. Please give special consideration to structural increases for faculty promoted from within, in order to close any inappropriate gap between them and faculty who were appointed from outside Yale. After spring break, in the second stage, you will be informed of the results of your recommendations for structural increases and asked to make salary recommendations for all faculty members in your department, also based on merit, within the limits of the pool that will be made available at that time. Please notify me by Friday, February 1, of your recommended structural adjustments. In thinking about the scale of your recommendations, you should know that a thousand dollar structural increase makes, over time, a noticeable difference in relative position. A larger increase might well be justified in some cases, particularly among the tenured faculty. In preparing your recommendations (in this first stage as well as in the next stage) you should consider the full range of contributions that each individual has made in the recent past. Contributions should include the quality and distinction of scholarly research and publication, efforts devoted to teaching in both departmental and extra-departmental programs, participation in the intellectual community of faculty and students, and the breadth and extent of service to the University and to the scholarly community at large. Although this first stage is designed primarily to make adjustments in the salaries of tenured faculty, you may also make recommendations for special increases to specific nontenured faculty, particularly those in the rank of term associate professor. Remember, however, that the pool for distribution to nontenured faculty is traditionally larger than the pool for tenured faculty, which results in some advance in compensation even without a structural adjustment. By now you should have received the Annual Faculty Activity Reports from each faculty member in your department. They were due in department chairs' offices on January 15. If some reports are missing, please make sure that you request them immediately. Please ask your assistant to forward a set of these reports to my office (either on paper or, preferably, electronically to fas.provost@yale.edu. They should arrive in the Provost's Office by Friday, February 1, along with your recommended structural adjustments. Please be sure to consult these reports and refer to them in making your salary recommendations. In addition, you will have received printed copies of the teaching evaluations for faculty members in your department for courses they taught in the spring 2007 and fall 2007 semesters. You should take this information into consideration in your recommendations. All of this information will be essential to members of the FAS Steering Committee as we review your recommendations for structural increases. The FAS Steering Committee includes the Provost and Deans of Yale College and Graduate School, and the Deputy and Associate Provosts, all of whom are able to bring to salary considerations the wider perspective of University service. A primary task of the Steering Committee is to weigh the adjustments recommended by chairs in an effort to achieve consistency and equity across all departments. It is important, therefore, that you convey the reasons behind your structural recommendations. In addition, if you are recommending a structural increase for several members of your faculty, please make them in priority order. You may wish to discuss with your cognizant Deputy or Associate Provost the structural recommendations you are considering, and in any case he or she will be in touch with you during this process, particularly in the rare instances when it appears that the Steering Committee's decisions might differ significantly from your recommendations. Faculty salaries remain one of the University's highest priorities. I fully expect the combination of structural and pool increases to maintain Yale's competitiveness among the most distinguished institutions. That said, it is very important to distribute the available dollars thoughtfully, and to recognize that there are fair and legitimate distinctions to be made among faculty members, based on scholarly achievement, teaching, and University service. Thank you for your attention to this very important matter. Sincerely, |