In the Chronicle story on faculty salaries in different fields, a curious result showed up.
The survey was conducted by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, and covered 211,424 faculty members in public and private colleges and universities. As the press report from CUPA notes, faculty in law, engineering, and business ranked highest “for all institutions across all ranks.”
But we had one exception for instructors at private schools, “where area, ethnic, cultural and gender studies is among the top three.”
Area, ethnic, cultural, and gender studies, in fact, beat related fields significantly at all levels — full professor, associate professor, and assistant professor. Full profs average $94,700, associates $71,014, and assistants $56,271. English profs at the full level came in $18,000 less, history full profs $15,000 less, visual and performing arts at $18,000 less, foreign languages and literatures at $12,000 less, and liberal arts and sciences, general studies, and humanities at $13,000 less.
