Thursday, February 24, 2011

How Philosophy Professors Receive Raises

It seems there are two ways. 1). Get offers from other departments and ask your current department to match the offer. 2). Merit raises based on productivity.





1). By applying for positions to other universities one can get offers, which one can take to ones own department and ask for comparable funding.

  • This is the main way to get a considerable raise. 
  • You should not do this if you have no interest in the offer.
  • Keep in mind that there is the possibility that the university will call your 'bluff'.
  • Becoming labeled as someone who does this regularly could reflect badly on your future career.
  • Be aware of your departments funding before attempting a raise.
2). Merit Raises
  • Two biggest factors are article publication and book publication.
  •  "~$1000 raise for each full article you publish in a good journal"
  •  " ~$4500 raise for a book with a major university press. "  Greg Frost-Arnold - Philosophy Department at Hobart and William Smith Colleges.
  • Some departments do not offer this.
Any comments or additions would be greatly valued.

2 comments:

  1. Hello --

    This is Greg Frost-Arnold, the guy quoted above. I just wanted to note that the merit scheme you describe here is what I had at my _old_ job, at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. At my current job (Hobart & William Smith), the situation is completely different; there is no merit pay. Also, it doesn't fit into either 1 or 2 exactly. At Hobart and William Smith, everyone who has been teaching at the college level for N years gets exactly the same pay -- physicists, philosophers, artists, etc. They will not match higher offers from other schools, and there is no such thing as a merit raise here. But everybody gets ~2% raise or so every year. This salary scheme is called a 'step system', and my impression is that it's not that rare.

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  2. Professor Greg Frost-Arnold,

    I am sorry for posting your information incorrectly, I took your university information off of your page and did not think to date it. I deeply apologize if this has caused any distress.

    Thanks for the information on how raises work at Hobart & William Smith and University of Nevada, Las Vegas. For my own clarity, the ~2% is to keep your pay up with inflation and then on top of that you receive something along the lines of loyalty pay for being there for 20 years instead of 1?

    It seems like Hobart & William Smith uses academic titles (assistant professor, professor etc...) does this influence their pay scale or just their workload?

    This is great information, I really appreciate you taking the time to help others understand how your schools have worked.

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