Campus Investments to Improve ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ's Working Environment
Campus Investments to Improve ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ's Working Environment
Updated May 2025
Investing in ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØÌý
ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ recognizes the challenges that the high cost of living in the city of Boulder presents to faculty, staff, graduate, and undergraduate students. Improving the salaries, benefits, and working environments of our faculty, staff, and student employees is a permanent priority of the ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ administration.
Faculty and Staff Pay Enhancements
- ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ has, since 2021, consistently awarded annual merit increases of 3% or above to faculty and staff.
- During that time, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ has also enacted other pay enhancements:
- In July 2023, the campus minimum wage was increased to $18 an hour for staff and to $16 an hour for hourly student assistants.
- Increased pay for promotions of tenure track (promotion to associate and to full professor) faculty (2022)
- Offered retention bonuses for frontline staff (2021, 2022)
- Increased the minimum wage to $15 per hour, including related compression adjustments (2021)
- ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ has enacted more thanÌý25 separate measures to improve pay, including those listed above, since 2021.
Graduate Student Enhancements
- Regarding Graduate Students on appointment, the university in recent years has:
- Remitted graduate student fees (2021) for all graduate students on appointment.
- EnactedÌý3% across-the-board increases to the standard campus rate for graduate student assistantships (2022, 23).
- EnactedÌý4% across-the-board increases to the standard campus rate for graduate student assistantships (2024)
- Improved medical and dental benefits (decade-long rolling effort).
- Instituted six weeks of paid parental leave (2020)
- Within the first six months of his tenure at ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ, Chancellor Justin Schwartz has pledged to:
- Extend health insurance benefits to graduate student family members.
- Accelerate efforts to create faculty and graduate student housing plans for CU South, the executive residence property near Williams Village, and the Louisville US36/McCaslin property owned by the university.
Additional Benefits & ProgramsÌý
- In addition to its commitments to pay increases, the university offers 43Ìý related to health and wellness, plus dozens of otherÌýprograms, perks and offerings in such areas as child and elder care, learning and development, financial literacy and planning, and discounts on goods and services, that provide supporting resources for work-life balance and stability.
Working Environment Improvements
- Alongside these pay and benefit improvements, the university leadership has worked to improve ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ working environment by strengthening shared governance partnerships withÌýÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ Staff Council,Ìýthe Boulder Faculty Assembly,ÌýCU Student Government, andÌýthe Graduate and Professional Student Government.
- Within this shared governance framework, each entity can bring forward to campus executive leaders its concerns, grievances, and ideas for improving policies, programs, and procedures, in order to solve problems together and constantly improve the university experience for students, faculty, and staff.
- In addition, ÃÛÌÒ´«Ã½Æƽâ°æÏÂÔØ is committed to increasing student affordability and access to higher education. Recent actions include the elimination of course and program fees and the expansion of theÌýCU Promise program.Ìý The campus has also taken key steps to improveÌýstudent hiring.