You will prepare and submit a term paper on Skyline State University Staff Productivity and Morale. Your paper should be a minimum of 3750 words in length. Skyline State University (SSU) is a comprehensive teaching institution with 14,200 undergraduate and 3500 graduate students accompanied by 400 faculty and staff. SSU is situated in an attractive and relatively isolated setting in Lubbock, Texas. In recent years, SSU has faced numerous challenges and difficulties. There has been a considerable increase in the annual tuition fees but resources to meet the new initiatives have been limited. Although SSU has a few resources in order to meet capital improvement or for the commencement of new programs and initiative but these resources are not adequate. In recent times, SSU has been able to provide only a 1 per cent rise across the boarding faculty and staff salary cost of living and standard promotion adjustment but it has witnessed no major increase in the number of staff for several years. Two programs namely a Staff Performance Excellence Program (SPEP) and a Faculty Distinction program was initiated in the year 2000 and 2001 respectively which were framed to recognize and motivate outstanding performance. However, since 2005 neither program was funded. The performance documentation and employee-supervisor discussion committee of the SPEP occupied a key role in deciding the eligibility and levels of merit-based salary increase. SPEP was not tied within any manner with the compensation rather it was totally an academic exercise. Besides, staffs within SSU have also not taken this program seriously as they believe that the program will have no significant impact on their promotion. At the same time, the Faculty Distinction program has been paused for many years (Ruben & Jurow, 2012).

There was no rigid plan to resolve this ongoing problem faced by the university and the faculty members in the university. As a consequence of this, faculty members in SSU felt an increasing level of stress and they deemed to remain strapped for time to teach. Faculty members in SSU who are economically vulnerable remain disheartened about their career prospects. Faculty members within the university have been continuously stressed and continue to struggle with the ramification of finance.