Faculty and Staff Salary Reviews

Faculty

The Faculty Salary Review procedure, reprinted below, appears in section 5.1 of the Faculty Handbook, in the Faculty Salaries and Benefits chapter. The specific details related to these steps are announced annually by the Dean of the College and the Division Chairs.

Wabash faculty regularly reflect on and document their professional development, and these activities form the basis for the biennial salary review process. In this process, salary merit levels are set for two years, though the salary increment associated with that merit level may vary across the two years depending on the size of the faculty raise pool. The value of the salary increment for continuing good work, merit units, and administrative service is established annually after the raise pool has been set for the next fiscal year. At the beginning of each review, faculty should revisit the description of faculty responsibilities in section 2.1 Expectation of Faculty Excellence.

For pre-tenure faculty, the second-year, fourth-year, and tenure review dossiers (including the Departmental Review letters) will serve as the salary review materials. The Personnel Committee will use these materials, plus a one-page (double-sided) activity sheet (but no reflective statement) addressing the two-year period, to assign a merit level following each review and, based on the approval of the President, will report the salary adjustments to the appropriate faculty member. In cases where the tenure clock is delayed for one year, the previous merit assignment will generally carry over until the next review. While first-year tenure-track faculty members are not eligible for a regular salary increase, they will receive the Placher Fund Salary Supplement in their second year.

Tenured faculty will submit biennially, beginning in January of their second-year post-tenure, a list of activities of the previous two years, a reflection on important contributions to the College, and a description of goals for the next two years (of approximately 1500 words, not to exceed 3000). The personnel committee seeks to recognize the good work faculty do across a variety of activities. Faculty are encouraged to reflect on teaching, scholarly activity, service, and other informal work and activities that might otherwise be invisible, elude easy quantification, or fit neatly into commonly recognized categories so that it may be considered by their department chair and the personnel committee. These documents should be submitted to the Senior Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the College and the relevant Department Chair. These materials will be reviewed using the following process:

During February, the Department Chair reviews the documents and meets with the faculty member to ensure a thorough understanding of their accomplishments and how the College can best support their goals.
The Department Chair then drafts a written evaluation addressed to the Dean of the College that describes the faculty member’s strengths and weaknesses and makes a preliminary assessment of merit level. This draft evaluation should be submitted to the relevant Division Chair for review.
Before Spring Break, the Division Chair and Department Chair meet to discuss these evaluations. The purpose of this meeting is to ensure the Division Chair fully understands the faculty member’s work and to identify any points in the draft evaluations that might be clarified. At this meeting, Division Chairs can also discuss the Department Chair’s accomplishments and merit recommendation if they are being evaluated that year.
By the Tuesday after Spring Break, the Chair submits the final version of the written evaluation to the Senior Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the College. A copy of the evaluation and merit recommendation should also be given to the faculty member. The Personnel Committee reviews these materials.
The Dean of the College and Division Chairs send their final recommendations for faculty salaries to the President.
After salary recommendations have been adopted, the Dean writes to each Department Chair indicating the merit units assigned to each member of their department who was under review during the salary cycle.

The salary process for contingent faculty continuing at the College beyond a period of two years is similar to that for tenured and tenure-track faculty, except that reviews generally take place annually, are shorter, and Department Chair recommendations are discussed by the Dean of the College and the Senior Associate Dean of the College prior to approval by the President. However, salary reviews for faculty with the title of Assistant or Associate Teaching Professor will generally be conducted on a biennial basis like continuing faculty. The Senior Associate Dean will notify the faculty member and appropriate Department Chair at the time of reappointment whether the contingent faculty member should enter the summer wage pool and prepare an activities review document.

Staff

Since 2015, Wabash has used an annual review process for academic staff. The goals of the annual review process are to:

ensure each employee receives formal and regular feedback;
encourage employees to engage in an annual process of reflection on their contributions to the work of the College;
offer supervisors and the Dean’s office a clearer process for considering achievement; and
provide more transparency to employees about how they are evaluated and receive merit-pay increases.

These goals remain the same, while in 2022 a new annual performance evaluation form was introduced to create more consistency for employees across the College.

Information and forms for the annual review process are sent to staff members and supervisors near the beginning of the calendar year. Employees submit a completed Performance Evaluation Template to their supervisor, in which they reflect on the previous year’s work. This includes a list of activities, reflections on key areas and achievement of the prior year’s goals, and goal setting for the upcoming year.

Supervisors review each employee’s submitted materials and engage individual staff members in a discussion about the year, including staff member performance; reflections on goals and goal achievement; identification of strengths and opportunities for improvement, or areas where the needs and expectations of a position are not being met; and opportunities for professional development. Shortly after the conversation, the supervisor will compose a written summary and any additional comments on job performance. These will be added to the review form and shared with the staff member. The staff member has the option of adding comments to the evaluation, and then both the staff member and supervisor certify that the evaluation has been discussed. The employee’s review materials, including supervisor assessment of the staff member’s performance over the past year, should be submitted to the Senior Administrative Assistant to the Dean of the College.

If a supervisor would like to recommend a staff member for a merit-based salary increase (an increase beyond continuing good work), a rationale for that increase should be provided in the form of a separate, short memo or letter to the Senior Associate Dean, generally indicating the degree of merit from 0.5 to 2.0 units (in exceptional or unusual circumstances a supervisor may recommend 2.5 or 3 merit units). On a four-year cycle, employees and supervisors will review and update job descriptions as part of this process, with the positions due for review and updated descriptions announced each year.