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[1 year appt]

I have accepted a tt position with a one year renewable contract. How typical is it to renegotiate salary after the first year?

[no longer candidate]

How can a one-year appointment be tenure track? Can you please explain, then maybe some of us can shed some light on your question.

[Search Committee Member]

Well, at my school there's no negotiating to be done with one-year appointments (they're set by a university scale, which the union has negotiated up to a living wage, at least), and people who are renewed (for a maximum of 4 years, here) get the automatic cost-of-living raise that's in the contract. I cant, in actuality, imagine any circumstance that would give non t-t people any negotiating leverage unless, perchance, they were in a science department and were crucial to the staffing of a NIH grant (which would then pay a supplement above the regular scale).

[melba]

"How can a one-year appointment be tenure track?"

It is not a one-year "appointment", but a one-year "contract".  A person on the tenure track will be given short term contracts, as they progress through the pre-tenure years. During these years the person earns a renewed contract from year-to-year (or sometimes they convert longer terms, such as 2-3 years at a time).

[TiredScholar]

I am just finishing up a one-year, non tenure track appointment.  Let me tell you, from experience, that you have almost no bargaining power.  I asked for a salary increase from the get-go but I had no luck.

Now, I did use this as a way to bargain for a small research grant.  Since they didn't offer me a salary hike, support for students, or lab space, I used that as leverage to get a bit more out of my contract.  However, let me emphasize, again, that you have very little room to bargain.  One-year positions are unfortunately a dime a dozen out there and the Dean/Dept. Chair won't be interested in keeping you happy as a long-term investment because frankly, you aren't.

The bottom line is: don't sign a contract until you have finished bargaining.  If you feel like you can't get anything more out of your superiors, then sign, but until then don't!  You never have more power than the moment right up until the ink from your pen touches the contract.

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[Search Committee Member]

Oops -- sorry, 1 year appt. As melba points out, I read your message too fast. That said, the only time (at most schools) you have a real opportunity to "negotiate" your salary upwards is (1) when you come in or (2) when you have a matching offer. But what is the salary situation at your school? A scale (whether by union or by "gentleman's agreement") in which everyone gets the same raise annually? A all-merit-in-the-administration's hands system in which large raises are handed to some people, without even a cost-of-living adjustment to others? A combination of the two, with a published routine for "applying" for merit and decisions made by a committee? Or any one of a dozen different modes of assigning salaries? This is information you can only get from your department chair, your faculty association or union (if any), or from trustworthy senior people. Ask them as a matter of information, not as someone who is coming in with a big chip on shoulder because of salary.

[anonster]

As Melba says, most initial t-t offers come with one- or two-year contracts, which are renewed periodically until the tenure decision.  It is possible not to be renewed, but you would have to make yourself a pariah pretty quickly for that to happen.

 In general, your raise from the first to second year will be figured according to the base salary you get the first year, and you will generally fill out some sort of activity report to convince the dean that youu deserve a good raise.  You might ask about whether merit pay comes into play after just one year (I would rather doubt it).  Of course some places do not award much in the way of raises at all, but at my institution I count on at least COLA (cost of living adjustment) plus 3-6%.  There have been windfall years, however.  Rarely does one enter into a negotiation process for the new contract unless another school is trying to lure one way, or someone has really been treated unfairly.

You have far more leverage to negotiate now than you will next year (unless you go back on the market and get a competing offer), so do the hard bargaining this year.  Moreover, all your subsequent raises will be percentages, so the higher you salary you start at, the bigger your raises will be.

[state school prof]

Not emphasized in the above discussions is the issue whether your school is private or public. The latter often have rigid rules that define salary; the former have flexibility.  In a private institution all sorts of salary negiotions can occur, and there is often a huge variation in what professors earn.  It's a different kind of meritocracy.

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