Professors and librarians have voted in favour of a new collective agreement at the University of Regina.

The four year agreement will mean increases to compensation and to members under the defined contributions pension plan.

A tentative agreement was signed by the union last month, days before strike notice was up.

"Everybody here is pretty pleased we were able to reach an agreement without a strike," said faculty association president Sylvain Rheault. "Everybody can go back to doing what they do best."

Before the agreement was signed, many students were concerned a strike or lockout would disrupt the last weeks of the semester.

Apart from compensation, the faculty association also gained a number of concessions related to sessional instructors. A firm ratio of the number of full-time staff to the number of sessionals has now been agreed upon.

"Because of budget constraints, administration tends to go to the easy solution which is simply to hire cheaper labour which would be in this case, sessionals," he said.

"We wanted to make sure that there is always enough faculty members that would do research and help students do master's degrees. That was an important thing for us to protect."

The agreement still needs to be signed by the university's board of governors.