April 11, 2011

Faculty Experience Doesn't Always Pay

As annual raises lag, professors look askance at salaries for new hires

When the New Professor Is Paid More 4

Andrew A. Nelles for The Chronicle

Sally Schwer Canning of Wheaton College (Ill.) earns $69,170; Jeffrey Wisdom of Joliet Junior College brings in $53,258; and Thomas Prohaska of the U. of Illinois at Chicago gets $126,019.

Enlarge Image
close When the New Professor Is Paid More 4

Andrew A. Nelles for The Chronicle

Sally Schwer Canning of Wheaton College (Ill.) earns $69,170; Jeffrey Wisdom of Joliet Junior College brings in $53,258; and Thomas Prohaska of the U. of Illinois at Chicago gets $126,019.

By Audrey Williams June

The paychecks of professors continue to be squeezed by the lingering effects of the recession.

Tight finances on many campuses have led to another year in which average salaries barely increased, exacerbating in­equities facing seasoned faculty members, whose salaries are stagnating while their newly hired peers are compensated at competitive market rates.

That anomaly in pay, called salary compression, means that the paychecks of experienced faculty are only slightly