Table 1 Elements of a tenure-track faculty job offer and startup package that you can consider negotiating

APPOINTMENT

 Contract or Service Period

Faculty appointments can have different terms. For example, they can be 9-, 10-, or 12-month appointments

These terms will affect how much base salary you receive

The offer should specify how long is the initial appointment and when or how often it is renewed

 Proportion of core responsibilities: research, teaching, and service

Most tenure-track faculty are expected to engage in three core types of activities– research, teaching, and service

The amount of research, teaching, and service required and/or expected will vary depending on the institution

The offer should outline the general expectations for teaching and service (e.g., how many graduate and undergraduate classes per year, how much service, and which type). It's rare for service duties to be spelled out in detail in an offer, but general expectations for junior faculty are still useful to have in writing, especially because women and members of marginalized racial and ethnic groups often perform a disproportionate share of informal and formal service responsibilities. Some of this information will likely be found on the Faculty handbook for the institution or Departmental guidelines for faculty

Depending on the institution, when the candidate transfers in funding and their associated indirect costs, they can often negotiate course releases or buy out teaching time to fulfill grant activities. For some grants to transfer, they must have a specific percentage of their time protected for research

 Advancement Resources

Often, an institution provides new tenure-track hires with a faculty mentor or mentoring committee. These individuals can impact the new hire's success. Institutions may have additional advancement resources available

How are these faculty mentors or mentoring committee members chosen?

What is their role in the career advancement of the new hire?

What other faculty mentoring and advancement resources exist at the institution of interest?

MONEY

 Base Salary or Pay

This is the amount that an institution agrees to pay the faculty member per year. It should be listed in the offer letter

Will vary depending on whether a 9-, 10-, or 12-month faculty appointment

For research-intensive institutions, an offer letter should stipulate what percentage of the faculty member's salary they are expected to recover from grants after the start-up period. It should also specify how summer salary will be covered

 Professional Development (PD) Funds

Primarily Undergraduate Institutions can sometimes offer faculty funds each year for PD activities. Funds are institution-specific and can be in the range of $500-$2,500

At Research Intensive Institutions, professional development funds are not usually broken out separately from start-up money. In these cases, junior faculty can use their discretionary start-up money for a wide variety of professional development expenses

Allowed PD activities can vary but usually include society membership, scholarly travel, and technical courses

 Research materials and equipment

Funds needed to get research projects started and off the ground

At research-intensive institutions, this money may be used to hire personnel such as staff (including overhead) or scholarly travel

TIME

 Time to spend start-up resources

Time given by the institution to use start-up resources

It can range from 1 year, at smaller institutions where start-up funds might be smaller, to 5 years. This time is negotiable

The offer should specify whether unused start-up money is reclaimed or "taxed" by the school or retained entirely by the faculty member. Candidates can ask for the latter provision as part of the negotiations

 Service release

The time during which the institution exempts faculty members from service responsibilities such as committee work and academic advising

New faculty are usually exempt from service duties during their first year at the institution

 Teaching release

At institutions where there is a considerable teaching load, faculty can negotiate a course release or buy time out of teaching to have more time to give their research a strong start

If at a PUI, it might not be in your best interest to ask for a teaching release early on, given that the focus of the institution is teaching. Consider asking for a release if you are bringing grant money with you that requires a considerable amount of effort

 Time to tenure review

Under certain circumstances, when a faculty member transfers from one institution to another without tenure, faculty members might be in the position to determine the timeline with which they come up for tenure

Knowledge of the institutional guidelines for tenure and promotion and a realistic assessment of where the candidate is with respect to meeting tenure and promotion requirements is needed to ensure success

SPACE, EQUIPMENT AND SCIENTIFIC EXPERTISE

Candidates should negotiate politely but firmly for the space they need BEFORE signing an offer. Their leverage evaporates as soon as the offer is signed, so no one should plan to adjudicate space concerns after accepting a position

 Office space

The offer should include access to office space for the faculty member as well as their lab members. If at a PUI, office spaces for undergraduate student researchers are unlikely to be available or included. The office should come with office furniture and there might be funds for you to purchase office furniture needed. If funds are limited, institutions often have access to a warehouse where surplus furniture and resources might be stored. You can ask for access to this as needed. The surplus stored there might also include lab equipment

At this stage, it will help to have an idea of how big of a lab the candidate needs to have. The location of the office(s) with respect to the lab space(s) might be an aspect that is negotiable. Considering the campus location of potential collaborators or peers in the department might be advantageous to have offices neighboring them

 Lab space

The offer should include access to a lab space for the faculty and their research team. The lab space might come with desks, so the lab members might not need a dedicated office space

Ensure the lab space is outfitted with the appropriate capacities, such as power and ventilation. It is also important that lab members have access to a place to eat meals and build community near the lab, especially if dedicated office spaces are not provided for them

The offer should include square footage (and, preferably, specific room numbers) of the faculty member's lab space

Ideally, the offer will explicitly state that the costs of any lab space renovations needed to accommodate the faculty member's research will be borne by the institution and will not come out of the faculty member's start-up funds. It is not uncommon for renovations to be necessary for scientific reasons (e.g., to accommodate a large instrument or to install vibration-dampening or light-blocking features). These expenses can be a major drain on the faculty member's start-up if they are forced to pay themselves

 Space for your specialized equipment or research needs

A microscope room, cell culture room, or cold room. Negotiation for rooms to house specialized equipment might be less of an option at a PUI, where research space is more limited

The candidate should ensure that specialized needs for space to house equipment are taken into account. The space should be outfitted with the appropriate capacities, for example, power and ventilation

 Access to shared equipment and/or core facilities

At research-intensive institutions, there will likely be a number of research core facilities that the faculty member and their lab members will have access to. Negotiation time is a great time to find out the limitations or constraints that come with the use of those resources and explore the possibility of trying to maximize them

Many times, at PUIs, most of the research-grade equipment is shared and available for students to use as they train as scientists. Institutions might post a list of equipment on their webpages or you can request this information to take into account as you plan and/or negotiate

There might be surplus lab equipment that the institution has that is available to the new faculty member

 Offering a specific resource

Resources such as funding, faculty expertise, facilities, and technology help universities reach their goals by enabling them to provide quality education, conduct impactful research, attract top students and faculty, foster a supportive learning environment, and ultimately achieve their mission of academic excellence and societal contribution

If a candidate has equipment, skills or expertise that can be viewed as a resource by their colleagues, the candidate should research the value or demand for that resource within the department. They should be able to communicate their understanding of its potential impact on the institution’s goals, and use that knowledge to negotiate salary and responsibilities