Time base
Being a chairperson of an academic unit is a year-round responsibility, but for most departments it is not full-time. In such cases, chairs split their worktime between their chair responsibilities and their regular faculty duties. The time base for each department or school will be recalculated with updated data in the year of a scheduled chair election.
Deans have been provided with TB allocations for each department. Please contact the dean for details.
Additional Information:
- Chair time base and stipends haven't been recalibrated for many years, despite the steep decline in enrollment and (less steep) faculty. Consequently, several chair time bases will be lower, some will be higher (in high-demand disciplines), and some will remain the same. The data informing the time base has been carefully checked, but some averaging had to occur since FTES and Staff categories can’t be neatly divided due to cross-listing, shared AOCs, etc.
- A few departments with particularly heavy accreditation responsibilities will be provided an additional .2 release at the discretion of the college dean and the Associate Provost for Faculty Affairs.
- Continuing chairs will not see an adjustment to their time base and stipend until the next scheduled election in their department, according to Academic Senate policy. Only chairs elected this spring (2026) will be assigned the new time base and salary.
- Library chairs are not included in this table because the measures used to calculate TB do not equitably apply.
- Chair time bases are based on five measures, weighted according to typical effort required in each category:
FTE faculty tenured or tenure-track, including FERP — 0.30
Student headcount in majors and credential programs — 0.25
FTE students registered in classes — 0.20
Lecturer faculty headcount — 0.20
FTE staff — 0.05
Total FTE chair time base = 26.0
Salary
Department chairs receive a salary that has two components: a flat monthly stipend, as described in Article 31.27 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, and an additional percentage increase based on the department chair administrative fraction.
- Flat monthly amount: Employees serving as department chair in class codes 2481 and 2482 shall receive a minimum stipend of $160, and for those chairpersons of departments of eighteen (18) or more full-time equivalent faculty, the minimum stipend shall be $240. These amounts are minimums and campuses may provide larger stipends.
- Additional percentage increase based on the department chair administrative fraction: 12-month department chairs (2481) will receive an additional 3.0% of the salary attributed to department chair administrative duties
Estimate a chair’s salary using this online calculator.