Summer Salary for Tenure-Track Faculty

CALS HR Summer Salary Guidelines - for Summer 2026

Tenure-track faculty on 9-month appointments (9ths) do not accrue any vacation. Strictly interpreted, a faculty member may not take vacation during the academic year (August 16 - May 15). Faculty on 9-month appointments take the normal university holidays*. Vacation is during the summer.

Faculty on 9ths are encouraged to pay themselves during the summer. The normal expectation is that a faculty member pays her/himself from grants for either 2/9ths or 2.5/9ths summer salary; this follows the university guidelines. The remaining summer time (2 weeks) is vacation. Faculty on summer salary take the normal university summer holidays**.

Summer salary is to be paid from the faculty member's external grants, as well as some other limited sources of funds listed on the Summer Salary Processing form found below. Funding from summer session teaching is also approved for summer salary. If faculty are being paid by summer session they cannot also be paid summer salary during the same weeks. Unless approved previously by the director or dean responsible for the funding source, per university policy, no summer salary is to be paid on Smith/Lever, Hatch, College allocations, or State funds. No summer salary is to be paid from Federal or State legislative items. CALS does not approve summer salary from start-up accounts (as this funding is college-allocated it is not allowed to be used for summer salary). Summer salary is allowed to be paid from salary recovery accounts, as they are tied to grants so this funding is considered to be within the university policy.

Effective Summer 2027 
CALS SrAD will no longer approve requests for over 2.5/9ths summer salary (requests for up to 2.5/9ths summer salary are sent directly to HR and do not need CALS SrAD approval).

Policy effective March 2011. Page updated May 2024; May 2026.

 *Normal university holidays during the academic year: Labor Day, Thanksgiving (2 days), Winter Break (6 days), and Martin Luther King, Jr. Day
**Normal university holidays during the summer: Memorial Day, Juneteenth, Independence Day.