Join a Cohort

About the Let’s Talk Money IChange Network Cohort

Let’s Talk Money focuses on improving policy, perception, leadership skills and engagement in the faculty compensation system, drawing on learning from efforts by the Rochester Institute of Technology, Drexel University, Gallaudet University, and Villanova University.  More information about the overall project can be found here. 

The Let’s Talk Money IChange Network Cohort (LTM Cohort) is designed to help public research universities examine their faculty compensation system(s) to improve competitiveness, equity, transparency, consistency, and communications. By engaging in monthly workshops, cohort members will be walked through topics key to improving the compensation system to create an action plan.  

Informational Webinar on the Let’s Talk Money Cohort!

How to Join

Submit an institutional application by February 1, 2024. Applications should include a letter of sponsorship from a cabinet-level office. 

Applications will be reviewed by the leadership team of the Let’s Talk Money project. Invitations to join the LTM cohort will be made by February 21, 2024.

*Webinar access passcode: Nb%E5T83

How it Works

Benefits

  • A judgment-free community focused on improving faculty compensation systems

  • A structured curriculum to build understanding and awareness of potential areas for change, informed by change activities at other universities

  • Access to the larger IChange Network

Commitments

Joining institutions submit a letter of commitment. Core teams are expected to join the cohort for monthly workshops. Institutions will be working towards an action and implementation plan, due to project leadership by July 15, 2025. Campuses will also be asked to complete occasional progress reports to support project evaluation activities.

Forming a Team

After acceptance of the institutional application, LTM Cohort members form an institutional team. The team has two components - the Core Team, who engage in cohort meetings and are responsible for the leadership of the team, and the Extended Team, who represent key stakeholders in the faculty compensation system. More guidance on forming the team can be found here.

LTM Cohort ICN Guidance on Forming a Campus Team

  • March 2024 - Workshop 1:  Project Introduction, Team Building, Goal Clarification

    • Identify hopes and fears about involvement on this project

    • Review ground rules for engagement

    • Clarify team goals (based on application) for involvement over the course of the cohort experience

  • April 2024 - Workshop 2: Organizational Justice & the Compensation Philosophy

    • Explore the concept of organizational justice and its role in strengthening the university compensation
      system

    • The components of a compensation philosophy (for faculty)

    • Review (and revise) the current institutional compensation philosophy

  • May 2024 - Workshop 3: Internal & Benchmarking Data for Salary Comparisons

    • The role of data in the institutional compensation system - internal (equity) and external
      (competitiveness)

    • Determine the pay analysis process most essential to meeting your goals

  • September 2024 - Workshop 4:  Pay-Decisions: People & Processes

    • Identifying Pay Decision Makers and Stakeholders

    • Mapping a Pay Decision Process such as Starting Salary, Salary Adjustments or Supplemental Pay

  • October 2024 - Workshop 5: Pay Decisions: Guiding Principles, Equity Checks & Traps

    • Consider the guiding principles at play (current and desired) in salary processes

    • List potential equity “traps” in your starting salary process.  

    • In what form could equity “checks” be inserted into the starting salary process?

  • November 2024 - Workshop 6: Revisiting Pay Decision Processes

    • Review pay decision process mapping, map additional pay decision processes

    • Consider pay decision processes through the lens of organizational justice

The workshop schedule, including tentative workshop topics, is below:

  • December 2024 - Workshop 7: Reflective Pause

    • Review progress on pay analysis

    • Revisit murky concepts

    • Look ahead to action planning: Elements of a quality action plan

  • January 2025 - Workshop 8:  Communicating about Salary-Equity Efforts

    • Revisit your mapping and guiding principles and consider your institutional landscape (identify sponsors, helpers, and roadblocks)

    • Describe Current Salary Related Communication(s)

    • Describe Desired/Future Salary Related Communication(s)

  • February 2025 - Workshop 9:  Designing a Compensation Professional Development Program for Pay Decision Makers

    • Consider knowledge, skills, and attitudes needed by current pay decision makers to enhance organizational justice

    • Strategize on how to appropriately scope a professional development program within the institutional context

  • March 2025 - Workshop 10: Designing a Compensation Information Dissemination Plan for Faculty

    • Analyze current information dissemination strategies regarding faculty compensation

    • Consider how to deliver information to faculty via web site, presentation/workshop, campus forum, etc.

  • April 2025 - Workshop 11: Creating an Action & Implementation Plan

    • Brainstorming and prioritizing possible actions

    • Identifying additional details needed

  • May 2025 - Workshop 12: Action Planning Office Hours

    • Open time for consultation on action planning challenges

More on the Institutional Change Network

The Association of Public and Land-grant Universities’ Eddie Bernice Johnson INCLUDES Aspire Alliance Institutional Change (IChange) Network helps public research universities create the environment and policies that attract, retain, and support a thriving faculty to advance the institution’s education, research, and engagement missions. IChange uses an institutional- and community-based approach to create a customized action plan that helps colleges and universities addressing practice and policy barriers that exist in:

  • Institutional context, including culture and climate;

  • Faculty recruitment, including outreach, building candidate pools, and candidate selection;

  • Faculty hiring, including job offers, negotiation, and onboarding; and

  • Faculty retention, including professional development, promotion and tenure, and job satisfaction and support.

IChange provides frameworks and tools to support institutions as they tackle challenges and improve their academic workplace. This is coupled with an active and managed peer-learning network where public university leaders can share their experiences with institutions facing similar challenges so they can learn and improve together and elevate promising practices for the broader community. 

Why it matters: Attracting, developing, and supporting a high-performing faculty is key to educating students and advancing world-class research and community engagement that solves some of our most vexing challenges.

Commitments: Participating institutions commit to identifying campus-based project leaders and teams who agree to create and implement an action plan to advance institutional transformation. Each summer, the IChange Network convenes in person at a member institution to share their progress throughout the year, amend or update their action plans, identify larger trends in the work of the Network, and strategize future Network priorities and endeavors. Participants also engage in network-wide meetings to share their progress, achievements, and challenges. Additionally, schools complete ongoing surveys and other evaluations with the network.