Many UTC staff and faculty members have praised Chancellor Brown and
Provost Friedl for their e-mail on faculty merit salary increases. This is
positive for UTC. It shows that staff and faculty members have the capacity
to criticize or praise as appropriate.

In developing a plan for next year or subsequent years, the bosses said "we
are determined to be as fair and objective as human capability can make
it."  This is a laudable goal. I want to point out that although the
mechanic for EDO rating is distinct from the mechanic for awarding merit
pay raises, as Matt Greenwell noted, a merit pay plan cannot be fair and
objective if it is based on a biased and subjective EDO rating.  The reason
is that there is a significant linear correlation between the EDO rating
and the percentage of merit pay raise. Any analysis that is based on a
biased input produces a biased and unacceptable output, irrespective of the
soundness of the output process.  An unacceptable output leads to
dissatisfaction, complains, and low moral!

The Correlation: If one quantifies the EDO rating as follows: 0 for
unsatisfactory, ......, 4 for exceeds expectation for rank, which is
supposed to lead to exceptional EDO rating, then the corresponding merit
pay raises for Arts and Science are 0%, 1.5%, 3.36%, 5.22, and 7.08%,
respectively. These data give a linear correlation coefficient r = 0.992
and coefficient of determination r2 = 0.9984 or (99.84%). (If the zero row
is deleted, we have r = 1 and r2 =1.) This means that there is a perfect
positive linear correction between the EDO rating and the amount of merit
pay raises. In fact, 99.84% (100%) of the merit raises is determined by the
EDO rating alone.

Because merit pay raise depends almost exclusively on EDO rating, any
effort to put in place a "fair and objective" merit pay system must include
a reform of the EDO process to make it fair and less subjective.  Remember,
"garbage in, garbage out."


Aniekan Ebiefung, Ph.D
U. C. Foundation Professor of Math
Web Site: http://www.utc.edu/Faculty/Aniekan-Ebiefung/