Colleagues,

As we enter the cooling-off period in our negotiations with United Academics, we are writing to share the details of our offer, and the context that has informed our thinking throughout this process.

We value our faculty.

They are the heart of our university and vital to our ability to fulfill our mission as a public university to teach, conduct research, and develop new and applied knowledge to benefit society. We also recognize the desire and the need for a fair contract that invests in our faculty and sustains the long-term viability of our university community.

An offer in line with peers and colleagues.

At the same time, we must also be responsible stewards of the university’s financial resources. Our offer will put significant financial pressure on our already strained budget and is informed by benchmarking from across higher education. Some salient points:

• Current total compensation for UO faculty averages 98.3% of AAU public peers, despite the fact that almost all those peers are larger, better resourced and more highly ranked.
• Our recent and proposed annual salary increases are in line with, or slightly above, AAU public peers. The average AAU annual faculty salary increase this year was 3.38%. The UO is offering 4.0%. By contrast, UA’s requested salary increase – 8.5% in the first year and 8% each of the next two years – is more than double this amount.
• Over the last ten years, faculty salaries have increased faster than the rate of net tuition (2.9% average annual growth). It is important to note that net tuition is our primary source of funding for salaries; increases beyond the rate of tuition are not sustainable in the long term.
• Faculty and administrators have received the same total salary increases over the last ten years. While starting salaries for individual hires of both faculty and administrators are often influenced by market rates, annual percent salary increases have been the same for both groups over the last several years.
• Annual proposed increases in our offer to United Academics match those recently provided to Officers of Administration (OAs) in a similar multi-year package. Fairness across the different employee groups at the UO is important: faculty and OAs represent a majority of our community and both are essential.
• The university is currently projecting a $2.3 million deficit for this year in the Education & General fund budget, due to out-of-state enrollment coming in below target, as well as rising compensation costs.

Our offer to United Academics:

• A one-time payment of $1,700 (prorated) for all active bargaining unit faculty members upon ratification.*
• A 4% increase to base salary for all active bargaining unit TTF, Career, Pro Tem, Visiting, and Retired faculty upon ratification.*
• A 3% merit increase pool for TTF and Career faculty effective January 1, 2026.
• A 3% merit increase pool for TTF and Career faculty effective January 1, 2027.
• A 13.5% increase to salary floors effective July 1, 2025, establishing a $50k Career instructor floor.
• An increase to the first post-tenure/continuous employment review for meeting expectations from 4% to 8%.
• A new 8% floor rank differential for Career faculty to offset compression from increased salary floors.
• Additional increases for Limited Duration faculty (excluding Postdoctoral Scholars) of 2% in both 2026 and 2027.

The need for fiscal stewardship.

Like universities across the nation, the University of Oregon faces significant economic headwinds. These include declining high-school aged population, competition from other colleges and universities, cost pressures from the federal government and state policy, and under-investment in higher education at the state level.

We, along with our colleagues at the AAU, APLU, and Big Ten Academic Alliance, continue to assess the potential impact of a number of federal actions and executive orders. This includes a potential cap on indirect funding from grants, reimbursements that cover a portion of universities’ facilities and administrative costs. If this or similar actions move forward, universities across the country stand to lose billions in funding. Many of our AAU peers, as well as universities across the country, have already issued financial austerity measures in anticipation of the potential loss of revenue.

In a period of uncertainty, we need to steward our resources wisely, balancing the needs of faculty, staff, students, and our many constituents, and continuing to ensure the financial stability of our university.

A fair and responsible offer.

The strength and stability of the University’s future depends on the decisions we make in the next few years. We support the right of our faculty to organize and to negotiate for increases as part of the next contract. However, those increases can only be made within the university’s financial means and cannot come at the expense of other employee groups at the UO, or at the expense of the students we are here to serve. We believe our offer is both fair and responsible and we urge United Academics to accept this offer and create a strong and stable future for our students, faculty, and university community.

Sincerely,

Christopher P. Long
Provost and Senior Vice President 

Mark Schmelz
Vice President and Chief Human Resources Officer

Find more information on the financial challenges facing UO, the need for fiscal stewardship, and our discussions with UA.

* If ratification takes place on or before the 15th of a month, the increase will be applied back to the 1st of the ratification month, if ratification takes place after the 15th of a month, the increase will be applied the 1st of the month following ratification.