2. Much negotiation of the terms of your appointment takes place before you accept an offer. The things that are negotiable depend on the type of institution and the department, but the primary concern should be to get what you need to enable you to be successful in the position. Items to consider at that time, or in the first year, include the following:
• Start-up package (including money for your summer salary, graduate assistant’s salary, postdoc funding, computers, equipment, conferences, and flexible funds for other costs)
• Time limits on start-up package spending
• Salary
• Seniority granted for prior experience
• Moving expenses
• Teaching load (temporary reduction in teaching, semester off from teaching, choice of courses, control over when courses are taught)
• Office space and office furniture
• Laboratory, research or performance space renovated to your needs
• Computing facilities
• Job placement assistance for your spouse/partner
3. Your salary at the early stages of your career can have a dramatic impact on your lifetime earnings. Even a seemingly small dollar amount can grow to a large sum over the time frame of one’s career. When approaching salary negotiation in an offer or at raise time:
• develop a strategy in advance for the best approach to take with salary decision maker(s).
• know what others in a similar field and at a similar level make.
• set both a minimum and an upper goal.
• don’t undersell yourself in your opening negotiation.
• don’t concede to much too soon.
• reiterate your points while remaining flexible.
• conduct a mock negotiation with a friend to boost your confidence.
4. Have a frank discussions with your department chair about the following issues:
• The track record of your department in supporting junior faculty
• The availability of, and your eligibility for, financial support within the institution
• Conditions you must meet for your appointment to continue
• Teaching load and number of new preps each year
• Courses you would prefer to teach
• Release time for the development of new courses
• Teaching assistantship support for the classes you teach
• Teaching assistantships available for your graduate students
• Expectations to buy out of a portion of your academic year salary
• Vacation time and the amount of summer salary you are allowed to pay yourself
• Preparation of your tenure packet
• Provisions for maternity leave, parental leave, medical leave, and elder care leave1
• Options for stopping the tenure clock for birth, adoption, elder care, or illness
5. If you already have or plan to have a family, it is important to find out about how your department and institution supports family responsibilities. In addition to reading up on the Family Medical Leave Act, you should also consider:
• obtaining a copy of your institution’s maternity, paternity, and adoption policy.
• finding out about prior practice in your department and other departments in your college.
• talking to other faculty with a similar family situation to your own.
• discussing options for stopping the tenure clock with your chair.
• looking into how a change in family status will affect your benefits.
6. There is a long list of other items that you should ask about early on in the process. Some key issues in your field may include the following:
• Cost of a research assistant’s salary and fringe benefits
• Percentage of overhead taken on your grants
• Funds available as matching money for grant proposals
• Number of graduate student applications coming into the program each year
• Quality of the graduate students in the program
• Office computer
• Computer networking infrastructure
• Support for technology enhanced learning
• Library services
• Shared facilities available for research
• Buyout policy
• Undergraduate advising load
7. There are a number of seemingly small issues revolving around departmental resource allocation that can affect how you are perceived in your department. Consider:
• What is viewed as a fair share of the office support for typing, photocopying, purchasing, etc.?
• Is there an established system for requesting library purchases?
• How will remodeling for your laboratory space be accomplished?
2.2 WHAT’S COMING?
2.2.1 OVERARCHING QUESTIONS TO CONSIDER
• Do you know what it takes to get tenure at this institution?
• What is your timeline to tenure?
• Are there options for coming up for tenure earlier or later?
2.2.2 MENTORING CONVERSATION: ON IT BEING MORE THAN JUST GETTING TENURE
There is a tendency for junior faculty to focus on and even obsess about tenure. Even though your purpose in taking a faculty position was not to guarantee yourself a job for life, it is easy to loose sight of your personal goals with the “ax” looming over your neck. Being denied tenure is not the end of the world (see Section 6.3) and, surprisingly, being granted tenure can feel anticlimactic.
Being aware of the requirements for tenure and working towards them are important, but don’t loose sight of yourself in the process. The best strategy is to find an alignment between your own interests and the tenure requirements and
