Professors and faculty members who feel they have done something extraordinary during the course of the school year, such as conducting outstanding research or heading an important committee, have the opportunity to nominate themselves for a bonus from the university.
Yet, how much bonus money - if any - they receive is completely decided by the chair of his or her department.
"I could give $5,000, $8,000 or $10,000 to one person - there's no restriction to how much I can give out of the allocation to any one person," said Joseph Conte, chair of the English department. "But obviously we try to spread it around like manure. You want to give it out there evenly to as many people as you're entitled to give it to."
All faculty members who are part of the United University Professions - a SUNY-wide professional faculty union - are eligible to nominate themselves to the chair of their department for the bonus, according to John Boot, president of the Buffalo Center Chapter of the UUP.
Boot said the bonus is intended to reward faculty members who go above and beyond what is required of them, but some departments may use it as a way to correct what could be perceived of as unfair salary differences.
Even if a professor was not particularly "meritorious" during the year, he said, the bonus is a way to compensate if a colleague in the same peer group earns a higher salary.
"Perhaps the person came in a time when the market was very competitive, and the next generation comes in and the market is very tight," Boot said. "So the next generation starts with a salary (that is higher) than the man who came in 20 years ago ... sometimes that's not correct. So those inequities can be, to some extent, corrected by the merit raises."
According to Boot, money for the bonuses comes from a pool generated by a percentage of the combined salaries of all UUP members. Every year, 1 percent of the combined salaries is distributed proportionally to each department.
The heads of the departments then have the responsibility to determine who gets a bonus and how much each recipient gets. According to Conte, Uday Sukhatme, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, limited the amount of bonuses distributed to 25 percent of the faculty.
For example, since the English department has 45 UUP employees, Conte could only give out 13 or 14 awards this year.
According to Conte, in the English department the average bonus is usually between $1,000 and $2,000, but that range can vary significantly depending on the size of a specific department's staff and the number of bonuses each department chair awards.
The UB chapter of the UUP's Web site stated this year's bonuses ranged from $198 to $9,198.
Conte said there are specific criteria he must evaluate when deciding who will receive bonuses.
He said the first priority is research productivity, which, in the case of the English department, means whether a faculty member's work was published, either in book form or in a scholarly publication.
According to Conte, the second priority is teaching service.
"For example, two of our faculty received Milton Plesur Awards from the Student Association for teaching," he said, noting that a professor who did not receive the award is not necessarily excluded from receiving a bonus.
The third priority, he said, is service, such as heading a committee or editing a national journal.
According to Boot, once a department head makes his or her decision, it is up to the university's administration to approve the bonuses.
Provost Elizabeth Capaldi said the responsibility of approving recommendations is shared between herself and President William R. Greiner.
"Everything is technically recommended to us, and we do review them, and people need to justify why they gave the raises," Capaldi said.
One problem Boot cited with the distribution of raises was that "there have been cases where very substantial raises were given to what I consider marginal performances as administrators."
"Some administrations, and this one is not precluded, at least the Greiner administration - I think it's different perhaps under Capaldi - they tend to reward their own very well indeed."
Boot said he wishes that when negotiating the next labor agreement - the current agreement expires in August - the UUP and the SUNY administration would agree that the bonus is an issue between both labor and management.
"I wish, however, that the administration or the union could negotiate that it's a joint labor management decision ... instead of just a management decision," Boot said. "That doesn't happen, but I wish it were the case."
