The Faculty Senate is conducting its second survey of the MUSC faculty regarding the occurrence and timing of the annual faculty evaluation. Results from the first survey, conducted last year, have been reported to the Faculty Senate, administration, and posted to the Senate Web Page (http://www.musc.edu/facsen).

Please answer the short set of survey questions to the best of your knowledge. This information is critical to the development of policies and procedures that affect all faculty. Return the completed survey via campus mail to the Faculty Senate President's Office, 400 MUSC Complex Suite 200 no later than Oct. 15. All responses are completely anonymous. The results of this year's survey will again be reported in the aggregate to the Faculty Senate, administration, and posted to the senate web page.

Policy for Faculty Senate salary increases

The policy for faculty salary increases was revised August 18, 1997 to disseminate to University Faculty prior to a final vote by the Senate (10/7/97). This policy was approved by the Faculty Senate at the October meeting and was approved by the Board of Trustees in late October. It's now a part of the Faculty Handbook.

Salary increases for Faculty members will be distributed as merit based increases.

• When funds are designated for faculty salary increases, the amount and the procedure for allocation of these funds will be communicated to the faculty.
• All funds will be distributed as merit increases, based on the approved Faculty Performance Evaluation Form, which is mentioned in section 9.2 of the University Faculty Handbook. Should the Faculty disagree with his or her supervisors' evaluation, he or she should make written comments on the Performance Evaluation Form before signing it.
• Detail of faculty merit salary distribution based on annual evaluation: The college/department identifies merit salary monies to be distributed to faculty. Within each college/department as a result of the annual evaluation process, each faculty member is rated in overall performance as follows: unacceptable, marginal, satisfactory, very good, outstanding. These rating categories are each assigned a weighting factor (0- unacceptable, 0.5- marginal, 1.0- satisfactory, 1.5- very good, 2.0- outstanding). The ratings would be summed for all faculty. The identified merit salary monies to be distributed would be divided by this sum resulting in the dollar amount value of one unit of merit salary money. Each faculty member would receive as a merit increase the dollar amount value of one unit multiplied by the weighting factor of the overall rating of their evaluation.*

Example: A department uses the above weighting factors as follows: 0- unacceptable, 0.5- marginal, 1.0- satisfactory, 1.5- very good, 2.0- outstanding. The department consists of 10 faculty who have the following ratings on their Faculty Performance Evaluation Form: one marginal (0.5), seven satisfactory (1.0), one very good (1.5), and one outstanding (2.0). The sum of the weighting factor for the ten faculty is 11 (0.5 + 7 + 1.5 + 2.0). The department had a total of $11,000 available for merit increases. One unit of merit salary is calculated to be $1,000 ($11,000/11). The faculty member rated marginal receives a $500 increase, the faculty members rated satisfactory receive a $1,000 increase, the faculty member rated very good receives a $1,500 increase and the faculty member rated outstanding receives a $2,000 increase. The total increase for the faculty is $11,000. *Adjustments for equity increases are excluded from the formula.