University of Iowa Provost Montserrat Fuentes announced a change in policy on Thursday to give higher raises to certain faculty in an effort to keep salaries competitive with peer institutions.

Tenure- and clinical-track faculty who receive promotions to associate professor or full professor will also receive larger automatic salary wages — a change from the university’s old promotional raise policy. 

Fuentes said that a promoted associate professor will now receive a $4,000 raise instead of the original $2,500, and a promoted full professor will receive $6,000 as opposed to the previous $3,500.

The new promotional raise policy will take effect at the beginning of fiscal 2021 on July 1, 2020. 

The UI Offices of the President and the Provost have worked with collegiate deans over the past few years to raise faculty salaries to be competitive with the university’s peer schools, Fuentes said in an email to The Daily Iowan. Historically, UI promotional raises have been lower than its peers, she said. 

“Increasing promotional raises for faculty is one mechanism that can be used to address retention issues within our faculty ranks,” Fuentes said. “It is important to support our faculty and reward their efforts in pursuing their professional goals and aspirations, which includes achieving the highest faculty ranks.”

The faculty promotional raise policy is institution-wide and disseminated annually by University Human Resources, alongside other updated and recurring guidelines related to compensation, Fuentes said.

In October 2018, UI deans and vice presidents decided to delay salary decisions to Jan. 1 — with the exception of UI Health Care — to fully understand tuition revenue following September enrollment numbers and state funding from the Iowa Revenue Estimating Conference.  

RELATED: UI considers adopting new schedule for staff and faculty salary increases 

General practice on campus says colleges may determine whether to award similar promotional to instructional-track and research-track faculty. 

“We anticipate that this policy change will bring more opportunities for students to be engaged in research at early stages in their careers and will affect our ability to recruit students who want to pursue the world-class quality of education and research we conduct here at the UI,” Fuentes said. “It is a powerful recruitment tool to make the UI a university of choice for Iowans and beyond.”

The UI’s 2016-21 Strategic Plan calls for enhanced recognition for faculty achievements as a way to recruit and retain faculty who possess the broad diversity essential to the university’s mission, Fuentes said in an email.

The university competes for faculty on a national and international level, and faculty compensation and rewards are essential for drawing a diverse and high-quality pool of candidates, she said. 

UI President Bruce Harreld said in a statement that the provost’s steps to increase the competitiveness of faculty salaries. 

“Enrollment projections in the next decade show us that universities nationwide will be in closer competition with each other than ever before,” Harreld said. “Our university’s new budget model has empowered college leadership with greater control over their funds, so it is more important than ever that we all work together to strengthen faculty support.”