Released today out of Chancellor Perlman's office:
Colleagues:
Today we are distributing to deans and directors the guidelines for
implementing salary and wage increases for the coming fiscal year for UNL
faculty and staff. We are working with an anticipated allocation that will
allow for increases in salaries and wages for all University of Nebraska
employees of 3.95% for faculty and 3.0% for staff. This is, of course
contingent on the state's approval of the University's budget. While we may
face very difficult budget decisions given the shortfall in tuition, we
feel that we still must put a high priority on salaries in order to attract
and retain the best possible talent.
The instructions to department heads and directors indicate funds should be
distributed with an emphasis on performance. Therefore, individual salary
increases for employees will vary, with some employees receiving more or
less.
I'm curious to know what the thinking was behind sending this out to thousands of UNL faculty and staff today (Friday afternoon), although I have a few ideas. Any coincidence that this was sent out while a lot of faculty are out of office and taking their post-finals, end of the academic year vacations? The state budget proposal only got through the intial hoop...
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See what your friends and neighbors have to say about this.
Wait a sec…
didn’t the U drop a few programs, and now they’re gonna offer raises earlier this year?
The answers to your questions are: yes and yes. But those two answers aren’t conflicting, as you imply.
The raises are a must, especially for most faculty positions. UNL simply can’t afford to fall too far behind its peer average on faculty salaries. Some would argue that UNL, for various reasons, should actually do its darndest to ensure its faculty salaries are well above its peer average.
As for dropping programs, that’s all part of the natural evolution of a university. Programs die, new programs are born ... it happens. I, for one, am very glad it happens. Otherwise we end up with something resembling the federal bureaucracy, where programs never die, no matter how irrelevant.
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