Faculty, tenure track

Initial appointments for tenure-track faculty are generally for one or two years. The contract stipulates that subsequent term appointments for tenure-track faculty should “normally” be for multiple years. Term appointments are limited to 7 years of full-time service, unless your service is interrupted for an approved clock stoppage for up to one year because you have primary responsibility for child rearing; a severely ill and/or injured parent; or, if you have experienced a serious and/or disabling medical condition. Other exceptions to the seven-year rule can be made by the administration only with the consent of the union. Notice of non-renewal should be personally served or mailed to your home. If your contract is not renewed, you must receive notice of non-renewal 3–12 months in advance of your contract expiration date, depending on how long you’ve been at WSU.

Faculty, not tenure track

Initial appointments for non-tenure-track faculty (NTTF) may be for one, two, or three years. After three years, appointments must be for at least two years. Prior to the end of the sixth year of service, the unit promotion and tenure committee (P&T) makes a recommendation to the chair or unit head regarding renewal. After six years of service, appointments carry the presumption of renewal and appointments must be for at least four years. Before the end of the third year of each four-year appointment, or one year before the end of a longer contract, the P&T committee makes a recommendation to the chair or unit head regarding renewal. If the P&T committee and the unit administrator do not agree, the administrator must provide the faculty member with a written rationale for not endorsing the recommendation of the committee. The member may appeal the unit administrator’s decision to the provost or their designee. The provost’s decision is final.

As of August 16, 2021, teaching faculty appointments are made at the ranks of assistant professor, associate professor, or professor of teaching. Lecturer and senior lecturer appointments were converted to teaching faculty appointments as follows:

• Lecturers and senior lecturers with more than seven years of service (including combined lecturer/senior lecturer years) were converted to associate professors of teaching.

• Lecturers and senior lecturers with seven or fewer years of service were converted to assistant professors of teaching.

Notice of Non-Renewal: If your contract is not renewed, you must receive notice of non-renewal 3–12 months in advance of your contract expiration date. Notices of non-renewal should be personally served to you or mailed to your home. For faculty with:

• Less than 2 years’ service, you must be given at least 3 months notice.

• 2–4 years’ service, you must be given 6 months notice.

• More than 4 years’ service, you must be given 12 months notice.

For faculty on subsidy-conditioned appointments, written notice of non-renewal must be sent according to the minimum requirements above or whenever notice is received that the subsidy is discontinued, whichever is less. If your renewal appointment includes a reduction in FTE or base salary, or other substantial changes in your work responsibilities, you should receive notice at least 60 days prior to the end of your contract, if you are 12-month faculty, or 60 days prior to the start of term, if you are 9-month faculty.

See the Contract

➤ See Article 20: Term Appointments

The contract sets minimum salaries for each job classification. Compensation is usually higher than the salary minimum rates.

There are three contractually negotiated ways for faculty to receive raises: (1) across-the-board raises; (2) selective salary raises; (3) promotion.

Across-the-board raises are applied to all salaries. Faculty who were on the payroll on the last day of the previous winter term receive across-the-board raises annually. The only exception is if you fail to submit materials required for the selective salary review process two times or more in any five-year window.

Selective salary raises are determined by the results of the selective salary review process. Each year, a percentage of the total faculty salary is designated for selective salary increases.

Within each school/college, that percentage is further divided into 3 pools of money:

• 3/7 goes into a teaching pool

• 3/7 goes into a research pool

• 1/7 goes into a service pool

The dean of each school/college determines which scores will make faculty eligible for selective salary increases that year. Typically, if you score a 1 or 1.5 in teaching, research, or service during the salary review process, your name will be added to the corresponding pool. The selective salary raise you get depends on the number of faculty members who end up in each pool that year.

Note for teaching faculty and research faculty not on the tenure track: In the past, it has been difficult for teaching faculty to be competitive for selective salary increases in the research category (and correspondingly, it was difficult for research faculty to be competitive in the teaching category). In 2021–22 and 2022–23, as the result of union action, teaching and research faculty had the option to be reviewed only for teaching and service, or for research and service, respectively. Those who opted to be evaluated only for teaching (6/7 teaching instead of 3/7 teaching + 3/7 research), and received a high score in that category, had their name added twice to the teaching pool and the amount they received from that pool was doubled. Research faculty could similarly be evaluated for 6/7 research and 1/7 service.

Bargaining unit members may also receive raises or additional pay through processes not governed by the contract. An individual may receive a raise to their base salary if administrators deem it essential for the academic quality of the unit. A dedicated pool of funds was put aside for faculty and academic staff equity adjustments between 2021–24.

In addition to raises to base salary, there are other ways to supplement your income. These include administrative attachments, summer salary, and bonuses. An administrative attachment is additional salary that may be paid to an individual for taking on additional duties. Summer salary is additional salary that may be paid to a 9-month faculty member who teaches additional courses during the spring/summer semester or receives a grant that pays them during spring/summer semester. Bonuses are one-time lump sum payments; typically, bonuses are awarded at the end of contract negotiations to compensate for missed raises.

➤ See Article 12: Compensation

Professional duties for faculty include teaching and teaching-related activities, scholarly and creative activity, and service to the university — e.g., committee work. Faculty teaching — credit hours, course loads, new preparations, and class sizes — should be based on disciplinary norms as well as departmental factors and norms, and existing school or college norms. In classes of 70 or more students, the instructor may request a grader, though a grader is not guaranteed. In order to avoid burnout, it is important not to allow course or credit load norms to creep up within departments. Tenured faculty are encouraged to help their untenured colleagues by speaking up if they see others experiencing unsustainable workloads. If you are experiencing an exceptionally heavy workload at WSU, and are not being compensated for additional work, consider discussing it with the union.

See the Contract

➤ Article 24: Professional Duties

Non-tenure track and untenured are reviewed twice each year, through two different and distinct processes: the annual review and the selective salary review. Should these two be merged into one, contact the union immediately. Tenured faculty are reviewed once each year, during selective salary review.

Annual Reviews: Each year, unit P&T committees prepare a written review for all NTTF and for tenure-track faculty who are not yet tenured. The annual review is based primarily on scholarship/creative achievement and teaching (as it relates to your unit, school/college, and university promotion factors) and secondarily on service. Teaching faculty are reviewed primarily for teaching with secondary consideration for excellence in scholarly work or service (scholarly work and service can be included in the review but are not required).

The annual review should identify areas of growth and strength and areas of concern as appropriate to the position. The P&T Committee prepares its written review, which is shared with the chair or appropriate unit administrator. Then, that person can concur and add written comments.

The contract stipulates that you should receive at least two weeks’ notice prior to your annual review, and that you receive a copy of your written review five days before meeting with your chair or unit administrator to discuss it.

For those on the tenure-track, please note that while annual reviews can help give you a sense of whether you’re on the right track toward achieving tenure, they are not to be used in the decision process for tenure itself.

See the Contract

➤ Article 20: Term Appointments

Selective Salary Reviews: The selective salary review is a peer review process intended to identify and reward good performance and to provide support and mentoring when long term performance falls substantially below disciplinary norms and written department or unit factors. Each unit is required to have factors developed jointly by faculty and unit heads outlining performance expectations. Department salary committees make recommendations to the administration regarding selective salary increases and mentoring.

Each year, in the winter semester, faculty are required to submit a report consisting of an updated professional record, a summary of the last three years of activities, Student Evaluation of Teaching (SET) scores for the last three years (if applicable), and a summary of current activities with expected results.

An elected salary committee in each unit evaluates a faculty member’s accomplishments in teaching, research, and service and assigns a score of 1-4 in each area (with 1 being the highest, and 4 the lowest). Union work counts toward service. Salary committees are instructed to give special consideration to factors and criteria that apply to the assignments of NTTF faculty. You should receive your committee scores within ten days. Scores are sent to the dean, who reviews them with an elected school/college-wide faculty committee before sending their own scores to the provost.

See the Contract

➤ Article 24: Professional Duties

Every faculty member has the right to fair consideration for promotion. Recommendations for promotion are based upon a candidate’s qualifications in light of specific department, school/college, and university factors. They are not based primarily upon the length of service in rank. Faculty should speak with their immediate supervisors if they are considering applying for promotion. The promotion process is outlined in the contract. There are distinct factors for each review level, all of which should be available on the school or college, or university website.

Teaching faculty are only required to attain excellence in teaching and one of the other two categories (service or scholarship/creative activities) to be promoted. The Teaching Faculty Committee (TFC) maintains a drive of sample materials to assist teaching faculty in going up for promotion.

If you are on the tenure-track, you are eligible for tenure after three or more years of tenure-track service at WSU, or after two years of such service if you also have three years of credited prior service. Evaluation of your candidacy for tenure is based primarily on teaching and scholarship, with secondary consideration for service. Your chair should work with you to develop a formal pre-tenure mentoring plan, including identifying a senior faculty member (or members) to help you navigate teaching, scholarship or creative activity, and service.

Please note that some faculty in clinical departments of the School of Medicine may be appointed with “fractional tenure.”

Promotion & Tenure (P&T) Committees make recommendations for promotion and tenure and write annual reviews.

There are typically three levels of P&T committees: (1) department or unit level, (2) school or college level, and (3) university level. In the College of Education, Law School, College of Nursing, School of Social Work, and School of Library and Information Science, which are non-departmentalized, promotion or tenure recommendations are initiated at the school or college level.

Department P&T committees typically consist of tenured faculty members elected by the faculty. As of 2022-23, departments with three or more NTTF members are required to elect at least one NTTF member to serve on P&T. The NTTF committee member(s) only attend meetings for which a review of NTTF takes place. The department chair serves as the chair of the P&T committee without a vote. School or college level P&T committees consist of elected faculty plus one student member elected by that school or college’s student council. The dean serves as chair of the school or college level P&T committee, without vote. The university level committee is made up of 15 tenured faculty members who are selected by the Academic Senate Policy Committee and the provost from a slate of 32 faculty.

There are department level and school/college level Salary Committees. Members of the Salary Committee are elected by the faculty. The chair, dean or unit head chairs the Salary Committee with vote. The Salary Committee must:

— Include at least three members of that unit’s P&T Committee.

— Be majority tenured faculty, except:

• in units with only one or two tenured faculty members, non-tenured faculty may be elected to constitute a committee of three.

• in units with no tenured faculty, department faculty elect the committee from all faculty.

— In units with three or more NTTF, at least one member must be NTTF.

Tenured and tenure-track faculty are eligible for one semester’s sabbatical leave at 80% of your regular salary if you have served at least 6 semesters since a previous sabbatical or since your initial appointment. The semesters do not need to be consecutive. If you take sabbatical leave, you must agree to return to the university for two semesters in the year immediately upon your return or refund the compensation paid to you during your leave. If you are on the tenure track, but not yet tenured, and you wish to take sabbatical, you must complete it prior to the beginning of your 7th year. After 12 semesters’ service since a previous sabbatical, or since initial faculty appointment, tenured faculty are eligible for two consecutive semesters’ leave at 60% of their regular salary, or one semester’s leave at 100% salary.

Sabbatical leave requests are due to the department chair by November 15 of the year preceding the academic year in which the leave is to begin. Sabbatical application requirements are detailed in the contract.

If you receive a paid fellowship from an outside entity at a time when you are not eligible for sabbatical, you may wish to take leave from the university. If you do this, consult with the union to help determine if there is a way to remain on the university payroll and retain your benefits while on leave.