If Kent State Beats Goals, Professors Will Profit

Kent State University is trying a new and unusual tactic to improve its status, retention rate, and fund raising—paying cash bonuses to faculty members if the university exceeds its goals in those areas.

The bonuses are built into a contract, approved last month, that covers 864 full-time, tenure-track faculty members who teach and do research on the university’s eight campuses. Proposed by Lester A. Lefton, Kent State’s president, the “success bonus pool” will be divided among faculty members if the Ohio institution improves retention rates for first-year students and increases the research dollars it generates and the private money raised through its foundation.

The message behind the institutional-performance bonuses, which are much more common in private industry and for university presidents than for professors, is that faculty members should benefit from the work they do that influences those measures of a university’s success, Mr. Lefton said. Be a good partner, and Kent State will be good to you.

“We’re not asking for extra work, but if operating results are better, I want to share this with the faculty,” the president said in an interview with The Chronicle. “We think this is an innovative approach that benefits both faculty and administration, and ultimately benefits our students.”

Paying faculty bonuses tied to institutional performance is highly unusual, said Gary Rhoades, director of the Center for the Study of Higher Education at the University of Arizona and the next general secretary of the American Association of University Professors. Bonus clauses tied to institutional performance are more common in contracts of presidents, provosts, and other senior administrators. —Kathryn Masterson

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