Faculty Compensation.

Faculty are a vital component of the SPH community, and equity in faculty salaries is consistent with our values and supports our efforts to advance the SPH mission. An equitable approach to setting salaries is necessary for hiring and retaining outstanding faculty members and for cultivating a diverse and inclusive community of educators and scholars.

In 2018, the Dean’s Task Force on Faculty Salary Equity identified a set of principles to ensure that salary equity at SPH endures over time. According to U.S. federal law, employers are not permitted to compensate employees differently for jobs performed under similar working conditions requiring essentially equal skill, effort and responsibility. However, pay differentials are permitted when they are based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or other factors not related to discrimination. This recognition by federal law reflects the notion that equity in faculty salaries is not the same as equality in faculty salaries. With this key distinction in mind, the Dean’s Task Force identified the following principles to guide our thinking on faculty salary equity:

Principle 1. Certain factors may impact salary. Federal law recognizes that pay differentials are permitted when based on seniority, merit, quantity or quality of production, or other factors unrelated to discrimination. Operationalizing these factors in the context of SPH faculty, measures that may appropriately lead to differences in salary include: faculty rank (assistant, associate or full professor), time in rank, market forces, and merit. It is expected and justifiable that differences in faculty salaries will arise as a result of these factors.

Principle 2. Certain factors should not adversely impact salary. Consistent with Federal Law, the following factors should never adversely impact an individual’s compensation: gender, race/ethnicity, sexual orientation, place of birth; religion, gender expression, age, or disability. However, it may be appropriate to provide higher levels of compensation for faculty in cases where the intent is to meet our goal of recruiting and retaining faculty who come from groups that have been historically marginalized or underrepresented in academia.

Principle 3. Accountability. The principles above should be applied uniformly and consistently. Accordingly, it should be possible to provide an objective basis for faculty salaries that deviate from salaries of other faculty at the same rank and comparable time in rank. This requires that factors influencing an individual’s initial salary, as well as factors that contribute to subsequent salary adjustments, should be documented.

Principle 4. Confidentiality. Consistent with policy and practice at Boston University, all faculty salary information is confidential and not made publicly available. Analyses, evaluation, and adjustments of faculty salaries should consider individual characteristics but protect confidentiality.

These four principles guide our approach for setting and reviewing the salaries of faculty with primary appointments at SPH. Salaries are most often set and/or adjusted at the time of initial hire, at the time of promotion, and via annual increases following the Annual Faculty Review (AFR) process. Equity is considered at every stage as follows:

Salary at the time of hire. When determining the salary to include in an offer letter, the first step is to review the salaries of faculty at the same rank and comparable time in rank, both within the department and school-wide. The ideal starting salary is one the falls well in line with the existing distribution. The realities of recruiting outstanding faculty require that we also consider market forces, such that it is occasionally necessary to offer a higher salary to be competitive.

Salary at the time of promotion. There is no standard set amount for the percent increase received at the time of promotion. Broadly, the modal increase tends to be approximately 10-15% but can vary depending on the review the salaries of faculty at the same rank and comparable time in rank, both within the department and school-wide.

Annual increases following the AFR process. Each year, the University approves a pool of funds that may be allocated for salary increases effective July 1. The pool may vary from year to year but is typically an amount equal to 2.5-3% of all SPH faculty salaries. This pool includes funds to reward merit as well as funds to address equity issues that emerged during the previous year, potentially due to new hires and/or promotions.

With this approach, the goal of maintaining salary equity is a year-round effort. Additionally, it is also important to periodically conduct a more comprehensive school-wide assessment. To that end, the Dean’s Task Force proposed a rigorous analytical framework that is used to systematically evaluate faculty salary equity every three years. This assessment process started in 2018, followed by 2021, and so forth.

The subject of overbase pay requires special mention in a conversation about equity and faculty compensation. There are only three circumstances where SPH faculty are approved to receive overbase pay, i.e., compensation above and beyond their annual base salary. The first is via the faculty incentive program, which allows up to 25% of the reward payment to be taken as additional compensation. The second is for developing a module for the OLMPH program, which allows compensation to be taken as overbase if the faculty member is fully covered. The third is for honoraria received from a source within BU but outside of SPH (i.e., from another college/school or BUMC/CRC administration) up to a maximum of $1,000. Otherwise, as described in Section V.2, compensation for activities conducted elsewhere within BU but outside of SPH (e.g., teaching a course at another BU school or college, or serving in an administrative role at the campus or university level) is applied toward the SPH salary coverage and is not paid directly as overbase.

Recognizing that equity is a product of an institutional culture that values fairness and is non-discriminatory, the principles and approaches described above guide our on-going process of assessment, reflection, learning, documentation, and adjustment. As we work to promote equity within and across our local and global communities, we similarly work to ensure the same within our community at SPH.