August 13, 2024
Dear members of the Connecticut College community,
I am pleased to share that we are making progress toward addressing long-awaited equity adjustments in faculty and staff compensation.
It has been our practice to do a market assessment of compensation for all positions approximately every three years. As both the Faculty and Staff Retention and the Campus Climate and Communications development teams of last year's Presidential Task Force noted in their respective reports, a thorough and nuanced salary study was completed by the Human Resources in 2023. Prior to that, a study was conducted in 2019. The process entails reviewing salary data from a number of sources, such as the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, the Connecticut Department of Labor, Salary.com and discipline-specific surveys. Generally speaking, we have found that approximately 10% of our employees receive pay adjustments resulting from these assessments. Individual employees will be notified by their supervisors whether this impacts their compensation.
As former Interim President Wong previously shared, the Board of Trustees approved a fiscal year 2025 budget that includes funds to address a number of campus-wide priorities, including employee compensation. Specifically, all faculty and staff received a 3% increase in compensation effective July 1, 2024. However, it is important to note that in approving this fiscal year’s budget, the Board allowed for a one-time increased allocation from our endowment for these campus-wide priorities. To continue to fund this key priority, among others, we must work together to build a more sustainable business model in the short and long term. This will be a primary focus of my work as I begin my tenure as your president.
In the coming months, I will begin working with key stakeholders across campus to move forward on equity adjustments in employee compensation and other priorities. In the meantime, I want to thank all of you for your continued support and commitment to the College.
Sincerely,
Andrea E. Chapdelaine, Ph.D.
President