Through a quantitative and qualitative analysis of 417 recommendations for merit salary awards, this article examines how faculty and administrators at an American university define merit. Particular attention is paid to how the academic characteristics of a writer or recipient affect the type of case made and the relative weight given teaching, research, and service in the letters.
The assessment of what determined merit varied by discipline and rank. It was also found that teaching is less valued than administrative service and research.
Many discussions of higher education, university reputations, promotions, tenure, and academic appointments revolve around the idea of"merit," a term that needs definition. This article is addressed to this question in laying out how faculty and administrators define "merit" for merit salary increases. Although most academics readily admit that "beauty is in the eye of the beholder," they hold steadfastly to an undefined principle of merit. This case study, as far as we were able to determine, offers the first functional, detailed, analytical definition of "merit" in academia. Certain stereotypes, such as research dominating teaching, are explored, many other factors are identified, and the relative importance of the various factors is analyzed.
This study continues the explorations into the academic profession which the first author has pursued for over a dozen years (Lewis, 1975). These various projects have been informed by one general question: how central is the principle of merit to academic life? The bulk of the evidence gathered to examine such matters as academic freedom, sexism, the awarding of tenure (Lewis, 1980a;1980b), and the promotion and salary attainment (Lewis et al., 1979;Gregorio et al., 1982) processes strongly suggests that considerations other than merit often affect decision making in academia.