Dear AU Community,

Thank you for a successful semester. You worked hard, together, to advance our mission, purpose, and community. We are excited to celebrate and recognize the achievements of our staff and faculty, including through the Faculty Awards presented on April 23, Staff Appreciation Week June 5-9, and the upcoming Performance Management Process (PMP). As we prepare to launch this year’s PMP, we want to share the next phase of compensation enhancements. Our two-year budget is centered on investing in AU’s people, including multifaceted compensation measures that address external financial conditions and continue to recognize strong performance. We appreciate the financial pressures faced by our faculty and staff. We want to summarize the compensation progress made this year and detail the next investments in our people that begin in July.

Moving forward on our people investments is an important step as we conclude the FY23 budget and prepare the FY24 allocations. We will provide additional information about the FY24 budget in the coming days as we reconcile budget projections with this year’s outcomes and update our FY24 budget assumptions accordingly. The budget work is an ongoing and dynamic process influenced by multiple factors, and we wanted to share the compensation information first because our people are a top priority. While enrollment and retention challenges present financial uncertainties that we are addressing together, we remain committed to investing in our people.

In a time of increased inflation, we are focused on our multiyear approach for providing competitive compensation to all employees and addressing specific market, equity, and retention opportunities with targeted investments. We are also prioritizing our other people investments, such as the retirement match, tuition remission, and health insurance subsidy for employees making less than $55,000 per year.

Through a range of compensation measures, we made important progress for staff and faculty—though we know that inflation continues to create pressures. Based on our FY23 budget investments, full-time staff and tenure-line faculty compensation increased by an average of 5.8 percent this year. Term faculty compensation increased by 6.8 percent on average. The increases included performance-based compensation and the external conditions increase (which were based on a 4 percent compensation pool), targeted market and equity adjustments, term faculty salary floor and compression adjustments, and the elimination of the lowest two pay bands.

The compensation increases implemented in FY23 exceed the averages across the higher education sector. According to the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources (CUPA), higher education staff compensation increased in 2022-2023 by an average of 5.3 percent, while faculty increased by 2.9 percent for tenure track and 3.2 percent for non-tenure-track.

The upcoming FY24 compensation increases build on the progress made over the past year. For the FY24 cycle (which begins July 1), we are making the following compensation investments in our people:

• Provide a 3.5 percent compensation pool. From this pool, full-time faculty and staff will receive a 2.5 percent across the board increase. A 1 percent performance-based compensation pool will be available to departments/schools/colleges for distribution based on performance reviews. Consistent with previous years, performance increases will be implemented beginning September 1.
• Continue the market, equity, retention (MER) pool for staff.
• Raise the base salary of remaining full-time staff members earning less than $40,000 to this new minimum salary.
• Continue advances in term faculty compensation, including raising the salary floor in FY24 to $67K for those without terminal degrees and $70K for those with terminal degrees. In addition, term faculty making less than $100,000 per year who have reached 5 years of service will receive a $1,500 increase; those with more than 5 years of service will receive an increase of $750. These are in addition to the increases term faculty in these categories received in FY23 ($1,000 for more than 5 years of service, $1,500 for more than 10 years of service, and $2,000 for more than 15 years of service).
• Raise standard salary increases for tenure-line or term faculty promoted to associate or full professor by $2,000. 
• Increase pay band ranges by 3.5 percent and raise staff to the new minimums of their pay bands (if they currently fall below the new zone one minimum).
• In January 2024, implement the second round of equity adjustments for full-time staff who earn less than $100,000 and have completed 5-9 years of service (1 percent adjustment), 10-14 years of service (2 percent), and 15 or more years of service (3 percent).   
• Implement compensation updates for faculty and staff in collective bargaining units in accordance with their collective bargaining agreements.    

As a reminder, the performance pool is an overall budget allocation. The pool percentage does not automatically translate to the salary increase percentage that any individual may receive. Individual performance-based compensation increases are determined in the review process, and many team members may realize compensation increases greater than the pool percentage.

We will continue investing in our people throughout FY24, and it will remain a key priority as we enter the next two-year budget cycle. As we have shared in the past, our investments in the FY23 and FY24 budget are the first building block in a multiyear effort to enhance AU’s compensation approach. There is more work to do, and we are committed to supporting our people who make American University a great place to work and learn.

Sincerely,

Peter Starr 
Provost and Chief Academic Officer

Bronté Burleigh-Jones, PhD 
CFO, Vice President, and Treasurer

Seth Grossman 
Vice President of People and External Affairs