Should an assistant professor negotiate for a larger yearly raise before receiving tenure? At my university, we are informed of our yearly raise with a letter mid-summer. There is no scheduled meetings with the chair or anyone else to discuss performance or the raise -- as far as I can tell, we just wait and see what it is. It tends to be a small cost-of-living raise in the range of 3%.  

Should a pre-tenure assistant professor actively seek to meet with the chair and ask/negotiate for a larger raise, or is this not done in academia?
Should a pre-tenure assistant professor actively seek to meet with the chair 


Yes!

You should insist on meeting with your department chair at least once a year, if not once a semester, to discuss strengths and weaknesses in your evolving tenure case.  Make no mistake—your tenure case started evolving the moment you signed your offer letter.  If you are doing the right things to get tenure, you need to hear that.  If you are missing something important, you need to hear that as well.  Symmetrically, if you think things are going well, your chair needs to hear that, and if you think things are going badly, especially if something in the department is proving to be a burden, your chair needs to hear that, too.


  and ask/negotiate for a larger raise


Oh, I suppose, if you have good pitch.  You're not going to get a bigger raise just because you ask for it.