Merit Raise Policy Review

March 18, 2016

Dear Colleagues,

The collective bargaining agreement between the University of Oregon and United Academics (CBA) provides for two pools for merit raises to be implemented in January 2017, one for tenure-track faculty and one for non-tenure-track faculty (Article 26, Section 2). These pools will be distributed according to the processes described in the unit’s merit raise policy. You can find your unit’s merit raise policy on the Academic Affairs website.

This notice serves as a reminder that merit policies may, but are not required to be revisited by units to ensure they reflect any desired changes coming from other policy revisions. The Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs also wants to remind units how merit polices can be revised if desired. This is in no way a mandate to change merit policies. Units may decide current merit policies meet their needs.

The CBA provides that the department or unit head, dean, vice president, provost or designee may call for changes to the established governance policy of a department or unit by informing the unit faculty of the change being considered, thereby initiating the unit’s process for policy revision. In addition, the faculty of each unit can call for a review and possible revision of the merit raise policy either through a process established in the unit’s internal governance policy or at a regular faculty meeting. In order to begin this process, faculty can ask the unit head to initiate the review and revision of the unit’s merit raise policy.

Because merit reviews will need to be completed during fall 2016 in time for January 2017 implementation, any review of these policies will need to be done before the end of this academic year.

Revisions to merit raise policies must be submitted to the appropriate dean or designee for review and approval May 1, 2016.  Deans should submit revised policies to the Office of the Provost and Academic Affairs for final provost approval by June 1, 2016.

If you would like more information or guidance about the merit raise policy, or how to initiate the review and revision process, please contact Mariann Hyland at hylandm@uoregon.edu or email aacba@uoregon.edu. Additional information is available on the Academic Affairs website.

Best,

Doug and Susan

Susan Anderson                                                                  Doug Blandy

Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs                         Senior Vice Provost for Academic Affairs