next »

[ucprof]

waiting to see what will happen with hiring in Wisconsin...

Indeed I know someone who interviewed there. 

[sockysock]

Here in NC, we're dealing with a potential 20% cut across the university system. More likely it'll be 10-15%, but that's still not good. We're talking about having to cut non-tt positions and increase loads for tenured faculty, so hiring is likely going to slow if not stop at the public unis.

I have an offer from UNC Chapel Hill. How worried should I be? I think the offer is solid but does this mean that I'll never get a raise?

[ucprof]

sock you should find out what the std procedure is in CH for reviews.  In the UC we have merit reviews and raises regardless of whether there is a budget issue or not. But other state campuses do not necessarily work like ours.  My impression is that most don't.  Now that you have an offer this is a good time to bug the chair about how the review system works at UNC.

[prof_smartypants]

Here in NC, we're dealing with a potential 20% cut across the university system. More likely it'll be 10-15%, but that's still not good. We're talking about having to cut non-tt positions and increase loads for tenured faculty, so hiring is likely going to slow if not stop at the public unis.

I have an offer from UNC Chapel Hill. How worried should I be? I think the offer is solid but does this mean that I'll never get a raise?

No, it doesn't mean you'll never get a raise. But it means you probably won't for a couple of years. At my school, this is the third year we haven't had COL increases or any merit increases. I don't see this changing for a couple of years, and there'll be a backlog to get through before it's "your turn" later.

The solution: seek external funding and don't depend solely on your salary. That's what I'm doing.

[bone_person]

Georgia doesn't have a hiring freeze--I just turned down a TT offer at a public university (tier 2), which was promptly offered to--and accepted by--someone else.

[amlithist]

I see this thread hasn't had activity for awhile (good news, I guess, or maybe just a function of so many places being frozen already).  In any event, at our opening week activities, the news has been spread across our district that we're doing our usual budget projections at the 5% - 10% - 20% budget cut levels (as we've done for the past several years).  The state's governors have been good to us, though, and we've only had to deal with about 5% cuts thus far. However, this year looks to be D-day in the state:  my current job puts me in more direct contact with the higer admin, and there is genuine fear and trembling that we're going to end up with, if not the 20%, at least in the 15% range of cuts. 

In addition, there's buzz that we're on the Feds' radar for Pell runners (something I've b*tched about on here for years and years); if we get slapped around on Pell, we're screwed:  there won't be any "belt-tightening" to it. (Pell accounts for between 1/4 and 1/3 of our annual revenues; if we get sanctioned and lose Pell, the blood is going to flow.)  Hopefully, in either/both event/s, I should be OK:  my job is with a "cash-cow" function, so they aren't going to get rid of me, regardless.  Still.

Also, our enrollment is down about 5% for spring already.

What are the rest of you seeing, at your places?

\

[ucprof]

We have the usual gloom and doom in the papers regarding possible new cuts.  Jerry Brown continues to want an election to raise taxes for education.  The newspapers bop back and forth as to whether the voters would go for it.  There is some discussion about whether to pop up the "tuition" aka fees yet again especially with more cuts.  The UC system seems to have figured out that it is best to have a modest cushion to avoid that nasty furlough nonsense from a couple of years ago.  Hopefully it all works as planned.  We got a 3% raise in October and the merit increases have been going through as usual so it seems they do want to keep the current players although new positions will be increasingly sparse and there will be more pressure to shift teaching over to adjunct faculty.
My dept certainly has not gotten all retirement positions replaced with new faculty searches.  The flagship UCs are now enrolling much more out of state students who pay nonresident tuition to defray the decline in state funding.  It's not clear how it will work in the long run especially since tuition increases also affect graduate student costs which get put back on departments and research grants.