Letter From the President
Dear OU Community,
You’ve heard me talk about our ambitious goals to double research at OU, to make OU Medicine the healthcare provider of choice in our state, and to expand our presence in Tulsa. The pursuit of these goals requires investment in human capital – our people - and thus, a top priority has been finding ways to ensure that our dedicated faculty and staff are paid at competitive levels.
Benchmark data shows that the Norman campus faculty salaries are, in aggregate, the most out of market across all parts of OU. The last across the board increase for our Norman faculty was in 2014. Since then, the Norman campus credit hours increased by 8.1% and net tuition revenue increased by 28%, but funding was directed elsewhere.
The Provost’s Office has been working closely with HR and the Norman business analytics team on the development of a Norman faculty salary program to improve our market-comparative position. We also sought the input of the Faculty Senate Executive Committee and Faculty Compensation Committee, in addition to the Deans, Chairs and Directors. The guiding principle of this compensation program has been market benchmark data. Using similar research universities as our comparison, Norman faculty are currently paid 92% of the market benchmark average.
I am pleased to share that we presented a proposal at the December Board of Regents meeting, and they approved it with an effective date of January 1, 2019. After this first round of raises, Norman faculty’s overall rate will be at 95% of the market benchmark average.
In this first round of raises, all full-time instructional faculty (ranked faculty, instructors and lecturers) in Norman-based programs on the Norman campus, at the College of Law and in Tulsa will receive a minimum of a 1.5% increase in pay (or a minimum of $1000). Full-time tenure-track/tenured faculty who are currently paid under market rate may receive an increase of up to 6% of current salary, proportional to the gap between their current salary and the market average.
In the near future, we will complete a market-based analysis of our HSC faculty in Oklahoma City, HSC faculty in Tulsa and our staff at all three campuses. Preliminary data suggests we are in a better competitive pay situation for these groups.
This newly approved 2019 program is a first step. It will not address all needs, but we will continue this process to make further investments in our faculty and staff as we move forward. I would like to emphasize that this first round of compensation adjustments is based on a simple mathematical relationship to the market average, without accounting for performance evaluations. However, going forward, annual performance evaluations are expected to be a regular part of our compensation programs. More discussion and details on this will follow, but this is an opportunity to underscore the importance of rigorous and robust performance evaluations.
I am happy to say we are able to take this first step, and that we are committed to continuing to find ways to invest in our people. Thank you for all that you do for our university and its students.
Sincerely,
Jim Gallogly
OU President