School of Social Welfare Merit Guidelines and Policy

Merit is awarded by the dean for teaching, scholarship, service, funded research and other, as defined below per calendar year. The basis for merit assessment should be each faculty member’s workload which is negotiated with the dean. Under normal circumstances, faculty receive merit pay based on up to 30 points per year. Faculty who earn more than 30 points are eligible for exceptional merit in those years when it becomes available. The policy includes two sections which address the assessment of merit for tenure-track faculty and research faculty with distinctions relevant to their roles within the School.  

• Merit points are tied to student C&I scores as follows:
  • Three merit points will be awarded for each course taught if the faculty member’s average of questions 3 & 4 on the C&I scores is 4 or above.
  • If the average of questions 3 & 4 on the C&I scores is 4.75 or above, the faculty member will earn one additional merit point for that course.
  • If the average of questions 3 & 4 on the C&I scores for a course is between 3.0 and 4.0, the faculty member will receive 1.75 points for that course.
  • If the average of questions 3 & 4 on the C & I scores for a course is below 3.0, the faculty will receive 1.0 point.
• Preparation of each course taught for first time = 1 point per course.
• Faculty receive 3 points for each course buy out or release.
• Doctoral activities (All points awarded in year of completion only).
  • Chair, dissertation committee = 2 points;
  • Methodologist on dissertation committee = 2 points;
  • Chair of Qualifying Committee = 2 points
  • Members of qualifying committee = 1 point;
  • Member of dissertation committee (whether inside or outside the School)
  • = 1 point.
• Mentoring of Pre-Tenured Faculty, Adjuncts, and GTAs: Faculty will receive 1 merit point for every 3 mentoring assignments completed per year.
• Mentoring of GRAs, undergraduate research scholars, and MSW research scholars will receive 1 merit point for every 3 students mentored per year.

• Article in refereed journal, counted only once in year of acceptance = 2 points.
• Book chapter, counted in year publisher accepts final manuscript = 2 points. Book (published by scholarly publishing company), counted in year of publisher acceptance of final manuscript = 4 points. Note: Faculty who write book chapters in books they also edit receive 4 points for the book, 0 points for the chapters; i.e., cannot receive credit for both the book and the chapters.
• Pre-approved projects (see workload document) not linked to course buyout or release = 2 points.
• Buy-out or release of second unit = 2 points.
• Monograph (not published nor distributed by KU School of Social Welfare; maximum 2/year) = 1 point.

• School/University (each of the following earns 1 point. These points may be distributed across the following subcategories in any proportion).
  • School/University service activities include:
    • Membership on a School elected committee;
    • Membership on a program-level curriculum committee (BSW, MSW, PhD);
    • Membership on University committee and other bodies.
• Local/State/National/International (each of the following earns 1 point). These points may be distributed across the following subcategories in any proportion)
  • Local/State/National/International service activities include:
    • Local/state service;
    • National (national invited or refereed presentations, book reviews for professional journals, editorial boards for journals, etc.);
    • International (international invited or refereed presentations, etc.)
• Significant, exceptionally time consuming service.

• Professional advising.
• Special assignments made by the Dean.

• Merit points for grants and contracts will be assigned in the following way:
  • 1 point for the funding up to 25K
  • 1 point for funding over 25k and up to 50K
  • 1 point for funding over 50k and up to 100K
  • Above 100k, 1 point for each additional 100K of funding.

• Dean’s discretion: 0-4 points per faculty member.
• Dean’s Incentive Point Pool
• The Dean has access to a separate pool of discretionary points created for the purposes of creating incentives and providing rewards to faculty that most effectively support the reputation and importance of the School to the University and the profession.
  • The number of points in this “incentive” pool of discretionary points is calculated at 1 point per tenure seeking or tenured faculty (e.g., if there are 25 faculty the available pool is 25 x 1 = 25 total merit points).
  • The points from this “incentive” pool are awarded at the Dean’s discretion.
  • The pool of “incentive” discretionary points is separate from the existing discretionary points that the Dean may award in accord with the merit policy.
• The creation of this new pool of “incentive” discretionary points will not change the maximum number of points that can be allocated for merit-based salary increases (i.e., 30)

• Doctoral activities (All points awarded in year of completion only).
  • Chair, dissertation committee = 2 points;
  • Methodologist on dissertation committee = 2 points;
  • Chair of Qualifying Committee = 2 points
  • Members of qualifying committee = 1 point;
  • Member of dissertation committee (whether inside or outside the School)
  • = 1 point.
• Mentoring of research faculty (e.g. unclassified academic staff), GRAs, undergraduate research scholars, and MSW research scholars will receive 1 merit point for every 3 individuals mentored per year.

• Article in refereed journal, counted only once in year of acceptance = 2 points.
• Book chapter, counted in year publisher accepts final manuscript = 2 points.
• Book (published by scholarly publishing company), counted in year of publisher acceptance of final manuscript = 4 points. Note: Faculty who write book chapters in books they also edit receive 4 points for the book, 0 points for the chapters; i.e., cannot receive credit for both the book and the chapters.
• Non-referred research products which have significant demonstratable reach and impact within the field (e.g. policy brief, white paper, technical report/manual, unpublished monograph)= 2 point
• Local/State/National/International Presentations (each of the following earns 1 point). These points may be distributed across the following subcategories in any proportion)
  • Local/State/National/International presentation activities include:
    • Local invited or refereed presentations;
    • National invited or refereed presentations;
    • International invited or refereed presentations

• For each grant and contract, merit points will be assigned in the following way:
  • 1 point for funding up to 25K
  • 1 additional point for funding over 25k and up to 50K
  • 1 additional point for funding over 50k and up to 100K
  • Above 100k, 1 additional point for each additional 100K of funding.
• So for example, a $75,000 grant would be assigned 3 merit points, and a $250,000 grant would be assigned 4 merit points.
• For multi-year grants, the funding will be divided and counted in each individual budget year.

Subcategories of unassigned service are:

• School/University (each of the following earns 1 point. These points may be distributed across the following subcategories in any proportion).
  • School/University service activities include:
    • Membership on a School elected committee;
    • Membership on a program-level curriculum committee (BSW, MSW, PhD);
    • Membership on University committee and other bodies.
• Local/State/National/International Service (each of the following earns 1 point). These points may be distributed across the following subcategories in any proportion)
  • Local/State/National/International service activities include:
    • Local/state service;
    • National service
    • International service
• Significant, exceptionally time-consuming service.

• Dean’s discretion: 0-4 points per faculty member.
• Dean’s Incentive Point Pool
• The Dean has access to a separate pool of discretionary points created for the purposes of creating incentives and providing rewards to faculty that most effectively support the reputation and importance of the School to the University and the profession.
  • The number of points in this “incentive” pool of discretionary points is calculated at 1 point per tenure seeking or tenured faculty (e.g., if there are 25 faculty the available pool is 25 x 1 = 25 total merit points).
  • The points from this “incentive” pool are awarded at the Dean’s discretion.
  • The pool of “incentive” discretionary points is separate from the existing discretionary points that the Dean may award in accord with the merit policy.