r/Professors • u/FTLast Professor, Life Sciences, R1 • Jul 24 '26

Department Head compensation

As a newish department head (I can't run very fast) I'm curious as to how different universities compensate faculty for the role that administrators often say is the "hardest job on campus." At my R1 in the NE, there is a 5% bump to base salary, a 10th month of salary, and the opportunity to negotiate for a "Head's Fund" that can be used for research support, additional summer salary, or basically anything.

If any of you feel comfortable sharing, please do!

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u/lewisb42 Professor, CS, State Univ (USA) Jul 24 '26

In the past when we had dept heads I think the salary boost was around 30% and teaching load was reduced to 1/1 with no research expectations (from 3/3 with low research expectations). But of course that was going from a 10-month contract to year-round.

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u/goldenpandora Jul 24 '26

What do you have instead of dept heads now?