A new state policy will require career-line faculty at the University of Utah to teach more classes without additional pay. The university has not yet said how or when it plans to compensate them.
Starting July 1, the Utah Board of Higher Education will require faculty at research universities to complete 24 instructional hour equivalencies per year. This mandate could add one to two courses per semester for some career-line professors. Faculty say the U is asking them to absorb a 33% increase in workload before it has figured out compensation.
New policy
Academic senate President Richard Preiss said USHE Policy R485 passed “without debate and without any opportunity for public comment.” The policy requires faculty at research universities to complete 24 “instructional hour equivalencies” (IHE) per year. This covers teaching, research or service to the university.
Tenure-line faculty actively involved in research will see no changes. But for career-line faculty, who don’t perform research and devote their time primarily to teaching, some will now have to teach an additional class every semester. The exact number depends on the amount of service they perform for their department.
The university is considering a pay raise tied to promotion as one possibility, but has not finalized a plan. Career-line faculty will teach these extra classes without additional pay until it does. “There’s no direct pay increase,” said Sarah Projansky, the vice provost for Faculty and Academic Affairs. “[Not] you’re teaching this many more classes, so therefore we’re giving you this many more dollars.”
Instead, the U is looking into other ways to increase salary in order to compensate career-line faculty.
Pay discrepancy
The U is engaged in a “compensation analysis and strategy project,” where it is comparing career-line faculties’ salaries to both other career-line faculty at the U and other Association of American University (AAU) schools. “How do our salaries compare to typical salaries at these other institutions, like the average? If we’re way below them, which we are in most cases, we’re asking the units … to consider a strategy. Is that salary where it should be?” Projansky said.
Preiss said that another reason that pay increases are behind is due to the other budget cuts the U is facing because of the state legislature. “We are demanding of ourselves a solution to a labor problem that requires fiscal flexibility that we don’t have,” Preiss said. “If you lose 10% of your budget one year, and then you have a three year plan to build it back, but then the very next year, your budget gets cut by 5% again, you’re just sliding downward every time. And where are you going to find new money at the same time to rectify compensation inequities among your faculty?”
However, some career-line faculty are unhappy with these answers. “This is just my personal opinion,” Matthew Lerberg, a career-line faculty member in the College of Humanities, said. “If they’re going to address salaries, which they say they’re looking at, I don’t understand how that doesn’t happen before.”
Another point of contention is payment for teaching extra classes. Right now, faculty who teach beyond their contracted load earn an extra $6,000 per class. According to Lerberg, now, he has an earning potential of $12,000 less every year. “Even though it’s technically not a pay cut, because the salary remains the same, there’ll be people who are teaching two extra classes that, in the past, were paid for those two extra classes,” he said. “But now, they will not be paid for those two extra classes.”
Maximilian Werner, another career-line professor in the College of Humanities, said the new policy has cut into his earnings. He said he would have to teach 11 classes per year to make the same as before the policy.
33% increase
Due to the nature of the policy, the changes may look different for everyone. Projansky said the average ratio for most career-line faculty is roughly 87% teaching and 12% service, such as serving on committees in the academic senate. Based on that ratio, many professors will have to take one or two more classes in a year, with their service able to count toward some of those IHEs. Projansky also said that a “significant portion” of career-line faculty at the U already teach at a 24 IHE level.
However, much of the work that a professor does outside the classroom lies in a gray zone that varies by department. A zone somewhere between service and teaching. “If you think about only time in the classroom, that’s the tip of the iceberg,” Preiss said.
Some professors say they will have a 33% increase in workload. “Just me personally, it means I will have at the very least a 33% increase in work with no additional pay,” Lerberg said.
Low morale
The new policy has led to driven morale down in some departments. Professors say the U is asking them to do more without additional compensation. “I don’t want to speak for other people, but morale is pretty low,” Lerberg said.
Werner attributed many of his frustrations to what he described as “mixed messaging” over the years. He said the issues predate the current policy. “I just don’t see that anyone much cares about how this is going to affect morale, and also how it’s going to affect professors’ ability to have more one-on-one time with students,” Werner said.
Werner, who has been at the U for over 20 years, also said that if he were a new professor, he would “get the hell out as soon as I could.”
Preiss warned that the U could lose faculty if wages do not keep pace with the work being done. “It would be unreasonable not to expect a corresponding decline in your teaching effectiveness if you were asked to do a third more in your job,” Preiss said. “And with being given no extra, no corresponding increase in pay, it would be unreasonable not to expect attrition among the ranks of career-line faculty. I mean, why would you want to do this job under these conditions?”
HANNAH L MCBRAYER | Feb 26, 2026 at 5:18 pm
This is an important article. Thank you for your research and reporting on this issue.
Rebekah Perkins | Feb 27, 2026 at 2:32 pm
This article needs to be disseminated widely among all U faculty! Thanks for your research and coverage.