Announcing Merit Pool for FY22

Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,

We write today to express our sincere gratitude and appreciation for your hard work, flexibility and resilience during this most challenging year. Your remarkable dedication to CMU has enabled us to continue our mission with compassion and persistence.

As we look ahead to the next fiscal year, we are pleased to announce the restoration of merit increases, based on job performance. Each dean and vice president has been authorized to establish a merit pool of between 1% - 2% for salary base increases and one-time payments at their discretion. The deans and vice presidents will follow up as needed with department heads and managers to implement their plans.

Like most universities and colleges, Carnegie Mellon has weathered losses in revenue and incurred unanticipated expenses due to the pandemic. As outlined in a communication from July 16 of last year, we have taken several measures to manage these financial exigencies during the current academic year and as a result, the university continues to be on sound financial footing. These measures included a suspension of merit raises, a reduction in leadership salaries, a re-prioritization of all capital projects, a pause in hiring, and reductions in staffing and budgets in both academic and administrative units. Thanks to these efforts and your commitment, we are maintaining momentum in our research and education missions and we anticipate a continued positive financial outlook. While the pandemic is not yet over, with optimism for the future, and pride in the collective efforts of our CMU community, we are grateful to be able to take this measured step forward and offer the opportunity for merit increases for the fiscal year beginning July 1, 2021.

During an extraordinarily challenging time, it has also been important to the leadership team to find meaningful ways to recognize what our faculty and staff have been through and to show our appreciation through other enhancements to benefits. Faculty and staff now have three additional floating holidays for use at any time through December 31, 2021; additional options for time away for those directly impacted by COVID-19, such as COVID-19 time off, emergency time off and use of unearned PTO; and we recently extended the 2021 Memorial Day holiday. We have also added low-cost, on-campus, temporary child care services, and implemented and extended access to Care.com family care services.

One of the prevailing reasons for our optimism is you, our faculty and staff, who have consistently overcome the pandemic’s challenges to advance our vision and mission in education, research and university life. As we move forward together, please know how much we appreciate you! Thank you.

Sincerely,

Farnam Jahanian
President
Henry L. Hillman President’s Chair

Jim Garrett
Provost and Chief Academic Officer