Retention Offers

Retention Offers

Here, "retention offer" means a special effort made to prevent a full time faculty member from resigning.

Each school is responsible for making the decision to try to retain a specific individual. OAA does NOT require a written offer from another institution, but a school may request that.  

A retention offer may include any of these:

• A mid-year salary increase
• Significant changes to teaching loads or working conditions
• Extra research funding:  anything other than what was originally provided in an offer packet or ordinarily available to all faculty
• Extra professional development support: for example, paying for a national or local program

Please see more notes below.

The first step is to notify OAA (ude[dot]ui[at]rhdaca) that a retention effort is underway.  

Deans or chairs may seek non-RC funding sources. All funding from outside the RC is limited to 3 years maximum.  Deans should preserve emails or other agreements for external funding.  

Once a draft offer is ready, the school HR business partner should submit to ude[dot]ui[at]rhdaca one pdf  with the following:

• Retention Offer Data and Approval Form
  • Information on this form is primarily from the retention letter
• Confirmation from all non-RC sources of funding (e.g. OAA/START, IU Office of Research).
• Brief description of why this retention is being pursued.
• Brief explanation of plans for the impact on the department
• Draft retention letter

OAA will obtain approvals from:

• Academic Affairs: Jay Gladden
• Academic Affairs: Margie Ferguson
• Office of Institutional Equity: Karloa Stevens
• Division of Finance and Administration: Camy Broeker

If a retention offer is not accepted, please advise OAA.    

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More notes:

• A promotion in rank cannot be used. No current faculty member may be promoted within their own unit except through the regular P&T process; an external offer at a higher rank is not grounds for promotion within their own unit at IU Indianapolis.
• A change in track (e.g. clinical to tenure track) may not be used for retention. Changes in track must involve either an open search, or a search waiver.  
• Salaries: OAA funding, if available at all, is limited to no more than three years. RCs will be responsible for ongoing salary commitments. Any raise must be immediate: that is, a school cannot promise raise 1 now, raise 2 next year, raise 3 the following year.  
• An administrative position does NOT result in a permanent change in base salary.  
• A change of 10-month to 12-month or vice versa has pros and cons either way--this is especially true for faculty who regularly have external funding for summer research. Please consult this page and faculty affairs.  
• Descriptions: the descriptions of research funding, teaching load, and professional development, are similar to those which might appear in an initial offer/ start-up package.  
  

Question s: about the form contact acadhr@iu.edu; about 10-month vs. 12-month, acadhr@iu.edu; about potential OAA sources of funds, Gina Gibau or Jay Gladden; about mitigating the impact on other faculty in the unit, Margie Ferguson or OIE.  

Created 10/1/2022; reviewed and revised 3/2024.