Initial Publication Date: December 19, 2007

36 Negotiable Items in an Academic Position

This list of negotiable items in academic positions was developed by Jane Tucker and Barbara Butterfield for their workshop on Strategic Persuasion: Effective Negotiations, Problem Solving and Conflict Resolution. The copyright belongs to HumanEd Consulting and Jane Tucker & Associates; it is published here with their permission.
  1. Appointment title or titles (all special titles are typically renewable after five years)
  2. Units (for joint appointment, specify fraction of appt. in each unit)
  3. Tenure status
  4. Starting date (January 1, September 1, etc.)
  5. Starting salary (options: bonuses; additional time off for consulting; additional contributions to retirement account)
  6. Living expense (university housing, housing allowance, housing bonus)
  7. Contributions to housing relocation expenses (selling/buying costs; realtors' fees)
  8. Benefits (healthcare; dental; insurance; parental leave; spousal benefits, time off)
  9. Child care: availability of child care resources and referral (also, care during time for research data collection or conferences)
  10. Tuition benefit for children
  11. Spousal job opportunities
  12. Reimbursement of moving expense (may be capped at 10% of salary)
  13. Travel budget (including travel for projects and for continuing education)
  14. Facilities / Space (amount and nature of the space commitment. For a joint appointment, expect only one office. Check the allocation of space, often public record).
  15. Office furniture and computer equipment (on campus and/or at home)
  16. Parking fees
  17. Staff support (direct and indirect)
  18. Nine month or twelve month appointment (or a variation)
  19. Immigration and Naturalization contingency (including fees and legal assistance in obtaining an H1-B visa and throughout the process of immigration)
  20. Research support or continuing research support (amount, fungibility and source of start-up funds; fungibility = degree to which money can be used for different purposes). Specify length of time during which start-up funds must be used (e.g., first three years)
  21. Research equipment
  22. Research staff (full-time)
  23. Additional hires in a specific research area - for program building
  24. Reduced or free service from campus facilities, such as machine or wood shops, instrumentation centers, such as NMR, etc.
  25. Support for Postdocs
  26. Graduate student fellowships
  27. Normal teaching duties in the unit(s) (option of selection of courses)
  28. Particular teaching expectations (for joint appointment, clarify distribution of teaching responsibilities among units)
  29. Number and source of summer ninths (number paid from general fund)
  30. Number of course releases (and any time constraints on this)
  31. Center or Institute affiliations—support for
  32. Service expectations (committee duties)
  33. Sabbatical—any recognition of sabbatical equity accrued elsewhere (can take the form of a Duty Off Campus Leave rather than early sabbatical)
  34. Date by which candidate should respond
  35. Time for candidate to resign from current position
  36. Release time for consulting