How and When to Negotiate a Strong StartUp Package 1.1 2008/02/25 15:33:48.617 US/Central 2008/02/25 15:38:44.575 US/Central Rice ADVANCE advance1@rice.edu Rice ADVANCE advance1@rice.edu Naveen Yadav naveen.yadav@rice.edu Negotiate Package Startup This document is a conversion of a presentation given at the Rice University Negotiating the Ideal Faculty Position Workshop on October 14-16, 2007.

Our Plan for This Session Components of a Start Up Package Faculty Member Perspective Chair/Dean Perspective Q&A Our Primary Emphasis

Example: A Bare Bones Offer Letter

Example: A More Detailed Offer Letter

Faculty Member Perspective You are in your most powerful position during the negotiation process (almost impossible to add to once you arrive) The chair is your advocate. Teaching reduction buys you time – this is critical! Flexibility helps a lot as your needs evolve. Can you change people into equipment? Graduate students into postdocs? Talk to as many junior and senior faculty as possible to get advice on what is a reasonable package in your subfield before you start. If there is someone at the institution you trust to ask about what a typical package in your field is like that is even better. Cannot compare offers w/o understanding a school’s overhead and tuition policies. Need to find out how much a graduate student costs and if it changes throughout PhD. Also need to understand school’s overhead return policies and academic year buy out policies to compare offers. And if it’s not in writing, it doesn’t exist…

The Chair/Dean Perspective

DO Realize this is when your chair/dean are forming their impression of you as a future colleague Have and communicate a very clear idea of what you need (2-3 pages) Differentiate between what you absolutely can’t live without and what would be very helpful Know what equipment could be shared with others Be prepared on the initial visit for your meeting with the Dean Be prepared during the dept interview to say which courses you can teach in the dept. you are interviewing in. Know your space needs (special power, cooling water, etc.)

DON’T Repeatedly change your needs (This was the only comment that every single chair/dean independently mentioned) Try to raise your offer at one school to make another match – it becomes obvious and reflects very poorly on you Wait until everything else is finalized to bring up a two body issue (when to bring this up is a possible Q&A topic)