After the offer, before the deal: Negotiating a first academic job

Academe, Jan/Feb 1999 by Golde, Chris M

When negotiating for salary, it helps to understand the context of the offer. Smaller, less prestigious institutions, for example, generally offer smaller salaries. What are the salary norms in your field? Salaries are simply higher in some fields than in others. Faculty members, recent graduates from your doctoral program, and your professional association can help you determine the salary ranges in your field. As for the salary norms in the department, the Web, a local ally, or the university library may be able to give you departmental salaries, especially for other recently hired assistant professors. Institutional salary scales can be gleaned from the AAUP's annual salary survey (published in the March-April issue of Academe) or from a database maintained on the Web by Arizona State University , which relies on data from the U.S. Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics. You can determine the cost of living in the city in which you will live using cost-of-living calculators found on the Web (the cost of housing, child care, car insurance, and the like vary). Another determinate of local cost of living is whether your partner, if you have one, will be able to find employment.

Summer support is often separate from academic-year salary, because many institutions pay on nine-month contracts. New faculty often receive one or more months of summer salary (sometimes called "additional ninths") in their first year or so until they are able to garner their own summer support. Ask whether faculty members in the department and the college earn summer salaries. If so, how? Is summer teaching available? Could research support for one or more summers be part of the start-up package? Does the institution offer competitive grants for summer support? Can faculty members spread their nine-month salary over the summer months?

Negotiating Other Forms of Compensation

Moving Expenses. Institutions can pay all, some, or none of your moving expenses. Get estimates for packing and moving your possessions. Determine the cost of moving yourself. These figures will help to inform your negotiation. Find out whether the institution will pay for your move directly or how quickly you will be reimbursed if you pay for the move yourself. Save all of your receipts-unreimbursed expenses are likely to be tax deductible.

Housing. If you are moving to a new city, particularly one that is far away, you may want to secure a place to live before actually moving. The institution might pay for a second visit for this purpose. If you make the visit after accepting a job offer in writing, such payment will probably be considered a form of compensation, and, as such, may be taxable. On the other hand, if you visit before you sign a contract, the visit will probably be considered part of the job search process and not as compensation.1 Some couples use second visits as a chance for the partner to see the campus and the city.

Regardless of whether you plan to purchase a home or rent a place to live, it is helpful to meet with a realtor to get a tour of the town and learn about different neighborhoods and the local housing market. If you plan to buy, find out the market range for the kind of home you desire. If you plan to rent, what are common terms of leases? (Are they month-to-month or annual? Are they tied to the academic year?)