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[zharkov]

I am curious about the monetary compensation for chairs, as well as the typical load reduction.  (Some people mentioned this in the Compensation thread, but the OP asked for non-monetary compensation.)

Also, how often are chairs expected to be on campus during the summer and/or in the evening?

Thanks,

Z

[larryc]

My chair gets a small stipend based on how many faculty he supervises. We are a 17 person department and he gets around 2 grand. He also gets a 50% course reduction from 4/4 to 2/2. He is expected to be here year round. Also he has first crack at summer teaching, he always teaches 2 summer courses. The administration argues that the opportunity to teach in the summer is the real compensation for the position since summer teaching is very competitive at my institution as faculty struggle to make up for our low salaries. It is a horrible system that we have.

[_touchedbyanoodle_]

My chair gets a small stipend based on how many faculty he supervises. We are a 17 person department and he gets around 2 grand. He also gets a 50% course reduction from 4/4 to 2/2. He is expected to be here year round. Also he has first crack at summer teaching, he always teaches 2 summer courses. The administration argues that the opportunity to teach in the summer is the real compensation for the position since summer teaching is very competitive at my institution as faculty struggle to make up for our low salaries. It is a horrible system that we have.

That really does suck. Imagine that bleak evening: "Honey, I got the chair position! And get this, one of the perks is that I get to teach during the summers!"

[larryc]

Well he gets about $10k for those two classes, and if he was not chair he would get to teach about one class every third summer, so it does add up. It just doesn't add up to very much! I suspect that this is yet another administrative holdover from back when we were a community college thirty years ago.

[icurhere2]

Our chairs in the smallest department get a 50% teaching load deduction.  There is a separate stipend for academic year and summer (in case the chair wants to have a substitute chair to take a vacation or such).  Chairs are specifically expected to be around before the beginning of the semester, during add/drop, and at the end of the semester, with a little more flexibility (not a 9-5) at other times.

[busyslinky]

Many department chairs are 12 month appointments.  I think a standard approach is to make the pay at about 120% of a ninth month appointment (at the upper end). But, have heard and seen a wide variety for this compensation.  Typically I have seen 1-1 course reductions for chairs.  External searches for chairs may have larger negotiated amounts (e.g. no teaching for the first semester, and one reduction from there on).  At my previous school the chair was at a 1-1 teaching load, but it was a 2-2 regular load (graduate level instruction primarily).

But, I would try for at least a 1 course reduction per semester and maybe, if its the first time, a little bit larger for the first semester to get all the processes in place to be an effective chair.

[anthroid]

Here we have 11 month contracts and can teach summer but don't get paid for it.  I don't teach summer.  I have a 50% course reduction as well as do all chairs, regardless of the size of the department (I have a 19 person department, one of the larger ones on campus).

[waxwing]

Teaching reduction from 4 to 2
Modest administrative supplement
Modest research fund
11-month contract (i.e. 2 extra pay periods)

WW

[philo]

Contract goes from 10 to 12 months, so a 20% raise.  No extra money for teaching summer classes, though.  I'm teaching a summer class now, and I officially become chair while the class is in session.  Am awfully curious to know whether I will continue to get paid for the class once my chair money kicks in---I was signed up for the class before it was decided that I would take the helm.

Oh, and teach load goes from 3-3 to 2-2.

[engineer_adrift]

Hmm, after reading this I'm feeling pretty well treated.  12 month contract, no classes required (I do teach about one per quarter anyway since I go insane if I don't have students), and a 16% salary kicker while in the position.

[aandsdean]

At a small public in the South when I was chair I got:

Nominal 50% reduction in teaching (from 4/4 to 2/2)--in reality it was only the first year I was there that I taught the full load.  The department grew so much that I ended up on about a 1/1.  I was expected to do summer, but that was always negotiated, and sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't.  We had a Maymester that returned revenue directly to the college (unlike Summer I and Summer II), and so we (chairs) were offered that teaching in preference to other summer teaching, as we didn't get paid extra and so there was more revenue kickback to the college.  I often did that.  I think in five years I only taught one course during regular summer.

About a 30% increase in 9-month salary.  (In fact, I made exactly 30% more than the highest-paid full professor but one, and that one had a particular special deal.)  However, this was REALLY a 12-month job, much like my current dean position:  there all the time, lots of evening and weekend expectations, take vacation time when out of the office.  I am actually a little more free now (at least during the summer), because I have an office staff that manages a lot of the business that runs past my desk.  When I was chair I had to deal constantly with student complaints, adjunct recruitment, and that sort of thing, which was very time-intensive even during the summer.

This was in a "strong-chair"/"Chair-for-life" institution, so the parameters of the job were a lot closer to dean-level than they often are.  I do a lot of the same things at my current institution as dean that I did as chair at my previous school, though I do have more authority in other areas, such as budget development and management.

PS:  I was hired from outside.

[easterner]

For me it's $2500 per year and a 50% teaching load reduction, from four courses to two. 
I am required to work at least half-time during the summer and I may also teach a summer class (which I do). The summer class pays about the same as my stipend for being chair.

I supervise approximately 30 employees -- both full and part time. In my case, I consider the course load reduction as a means of clearing enough space each day so that I may properly do my job.  At our institution chairs are appointed by the administration from a list of at least two individuals selected by the division.  The terms are for four years and can be renewed once.

My compensation for being chair is obviously on the lean side by comparison.  I do it much more because I want to provide service than for any money involved.  I have a friend the the midwest who worked under a much different scenario. He had the same 50% course load reduction, but his stipend was literally a one-third increase in his pay.  This was in order to compensate him for working through the summer.  When he decided after 12 years to give up being chair, he negotiated with his school to arrive at his post-chair salary.  He couldn't afford a 25% pay cut after all of those years, yet certainly didn't expect the school to maintain his salary at the current level.  They settled on a nine month pro-rated salary plus $10,000 per year.

I hope this information is helpful to you and others.

[mellonia]

Here, Dept. Chairs get about $10K in salary stipend, a negotiated research supplement (ideally as high as $40K a year, enough for a postdoc salary, but this tends to be one of the first things to disappear when the budget is stretched...and it always is), and 50% teaching load reduction.  Some very small depts, the stipend is only about $7500, and I'm not sure that the research supplement holds in all faculties (I'm in science).  Larger depts at my University (like mine, we have 40 faculty members) also have an Associate Chair, who gets half of the $ supplements the chair gets, and the same teaching load reduction.  It's definitely a 12-month job, and we have an acting chair when the chair is on vacation or just out of the office for the day, and there is a small but unspecified expectation for some weekend and evening events.  Seems an OK package, but the only thing that makes a difference to me is the research supplement;  as Assoc. Chair I think the majority of my salary supplement just gets sunk into the (increasingly necessary) tequila budget...

[waxwing]

Can you get that on state contract?

WW

[medprof]

At my midwestern CC, the chairs are more like deans at most of the places described. The chair runs 3-6 departments and we only have 2 deans in the entire college.

The chair has no teaching responsibilities, though can teach for extra pay if they want (almost none do). The pay is whatever they can negotiate when they get hired. You get at least a small pay raise over whatever you were at as a prof if you taught a full load over summer, so figure $15K or so.

The job becomes a 12-month, administrative job without tenure protection. You switch from getting breaks off to a certain number of weeks vacation.