Promotion, Tenure and Salary Committee Statement on Merit, December 2014
The role of the PTS Committee is to address faculty issues related to promotion, tenure, and salary. Merit evaluations play an important role in all three areas. Related to promotion (also see p. 13 of this link ) and tenure, the Joint Promotion Committee uses merit rankings in their consideration of candidates for promotion, and faculty who do not have a consistent record of merit evaluations are disadvantaged in this review. Meaningful merit evaluations for faculty moving through the ranks are predicated on a thorough, yearly evaluation of all faculty members in their department, and thus department-wide merit evaluations serve to support junior faculty even in times when there are no associated salary benefits. In terms of salary, while there has not been a salary package from the state that includes merit pay for most years in the past decade,
UW System and UW-L have been making efforts to address salary issues through internally funded programs. Recent pay increases were awarded only to faculty who underwent departmental merit review and were deemed meritorious by their departments. This trend in salary funding is likely to continue.
We recognize that departments vary greatly in how they determine merit, who serves on the department merit committee, and even in the categories of merit assigned. Our role is not to create a single system for all departments, but rather to encourage departments to conduct thoughtful and complete annual merit evaluations, and to provide some ideas for departments to consider in framing their merit evaluation procedures. We also want to encourage dialogue within and across departments about the merit process.
1. UW System and UW-L Definition of Merit
Merit review is used to meet yearly faculty performance evaluation required by UW
System personnel rules ( UWS 3.05
) and UW-L personnel rules ( UWL 3.05
), which state,
“performance of all faculty members shall be reviewed annually. The areas of review shall include teaching, scholarship, and service (professional and university). Departments shall establish written bylaws specifying the review procedures. The bylaws shall include the criteria used in the review, how the criteria are applied, the occasions and methods of review, and any appellate procedures.
The review procedures shall also provide faculty members with the opportunity to document their performance in the review areas for the time period under review. These bylaws shall be filed with the appropriate academic dean for the purpose of ensuring compliance with UWS and UWL personnel rules and faculty policies.”
“The results of the review shall be used in making recommendations for salary adjustments, retention, tenure, promotion, tenured faculty review and development, and for other considerations as needed.”
2. Reasons for conducting merit a.
Faculty who are not deemed meritorious as a result of an annual merit review by their department will not receive compensation in pay plans. b.
A consistent record of merit evaluations within a departmental context is a consideration for personnel decisions including retention, tenure, and promotion.

Faculty applying for promotion without departmental merit evaluation data are disadvantaged in the promotion review process. c.
Merit provides feedback on job performance within a departmental context.
Yearly merit evaluations allow faculty at all levels to understand how well they are doing vis a vis department standards. d.
Merit evaluations encourage conversations about faculty activities that might not otherwise occur, such as between members of sub-disciplines within departments.
3. Best Practices a.
Follow faculty senate guidelines when conducting merit. b.
Merit rankings should be based on a fair and comprehensive review of faculty performance, and not include such factors as timing of promotion, selfnomination, or a rotating basis . c.
Involve junior faculty in the process. d.
Involve all sub-disciplines in the process. e.
Teaching should be evaluated using a variety of measures. Faculty Senate best practices indicate that: “SEIs should not be the sole means of evaluating instruction, and SEI scores should be interpreted within the context of variables known to be related to evaluations (e.g. student motivation, class size, discipline, etc.) In general, it is recommended that SEI scores not be compared across instructors.” f.
Scholarship/Creative Endeavors should be evaluated in a tiered fashion, giving more consideration to some works over others based on discipline standards. g.
Service should be evaluated in a tiered fashion, based on departmental/discipline standards and expectations. h.
Consider using a rolling average of merit evaluations to fairly compensate all meritorious faculty in years when there is merit pay.
4. Examples of Department Merit Bylaws and Additional Resources a.
Link to CLS bylaws b.
Link to CBA bylaws c.
Link to SAH bylaws
D.J. Malik and N.D. Lees. “Making Faculty Evaluation Count.” The Department Chair 11(2) (fall
2000): 6-8.
R.A. Arreola. “Developing a Comprehensive Faculty Evaluation System.” 3rd ed. (Anker Publishing
Company, Inc., 2006)