Faculty Market Analysis
Project Overview
Recognizing and rewarding our faculty is a university priority. To support this priority and enhance our recruitment and retention efforts, we are working diligently to ensure that faculty salaries are competitive. In spring 2024, the Provost's Office launched a project to review compensation for full-time faculty across the university who are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
This multiphase project includes a market benchmark analysis and a market pricing strategy. For the first phase, we are partnering with consultants at Willis Towers Watson (WTW), experts in compensation strategy and design. Phase one will conclude by the end of the fall 2024 semester with a market pricing strategy and a report with recommendations. During this phase, we will engage faculty stakeholders from each school to share their perspectives on compensation practices and provide input on which peer schools to include in the analysis for comparison.
In the second phase of the project, the consultants will deliver their findings and recommendations to the deans, and the deans will develop plans for implementation at their respective schools. In the project’s final phase, we will develop university-wide guidelines and best practices for faculty compensation.
Timeline
Phase 1 (May 2024 – ~December 2024): data collection, selection of peer comparator groups, and benchmarking analysis of faculty salaries against composite competitive market values
Phase 2 (Spring 2025): development of a multi-phase implementation plan for each school, which is likely to include refinement of the recommendations to account for faculty productivity and school or department-based factors
Phase 3 (Fall 2024 – Spring 2025): development and socialization of university-wide compensation guidelines and best practices
Team
Project Oversight: Kara Charmanski, Executive Associate Provost
Project Manager: Melissa Stevenson, Assistant Provost for Faculty Affairs
Christina Butler, Director of Institutional Research
Brian Cody, Senior Budget Systems Analyst
Austin Fuller, Senior HR Analyst
Jim Hurley, VP for Finance & Treasurer
Melissa Kelly, Director of Faculty Affairs, A&S
Tom Malone, Executive Vice Dean for Strategy & Operations, TUSM
Hannah Macfarlane, Communications Manager, Office of the Provost
Tricia McNaughton, Director of (Staff) Compensation
Augusta Rohrbach, Associate Provost for Faculty Initiatives
Kim Ryan, Vice President for Human Resources
Jim Sarazen, EAD, School of Engineering
Anne Spangler, Director, HR Strategies & Initiatives
- Share knowledge of external and best practices
- Provide content and process leadership
- Provide analytical support
- Develop key project deliverables
Dana Fleming, Associate General Counsel, OUC
FAQ
This process will review the salaries of all full-time faculty who are employed and compensated by Tufts University and who are not covered by a collective bargaining agreement.
It is not expected that all faculty will receive a salary adjustment at the conclusion of the analysis.
Recognizing and rewarding our faculty is a major university strategic priority and there are budgetary impacts to embarking on a major market analysis such as this. It is typical for most institutions to implement salary changes over 3-5 years; we expect to find ourselves in a similar situation at Tufts. Once we receive the market pricing strategy from the consultants, we will partner with the deans to ensure that information is shared with department chairs and faculty.
The consultants are using CUPA-HR, which is an industry standard source for faculty compensation data and provides data from a mix of public and private institutions across the United States.
We will be using a university-wide peer comparator list, created with input from the consultants, faculty stakeholders, and school deans.
Some of the key factors that help to determine a peer comparator group include size of institution, R1 status, endowment per FTE, geographical factors, institutional memberships (e.g. AAU), and accreditations.
Questions about this project?
Please reach out to Melissa Stevenson, Assistant Provost for Faculty Affairs at faculty@tufts.edu.