April 16, 2008
Low Faculty Salaries in History, and Other Reading
- PhDinHistory examines faculty salaries in history and observes that they’re declining relative to the salaries of professors in other disciplines.
- In the latest Heads Up column, James H.S. McGregor, professor and co-head of the comparative-literature department at the University of Georgia, explains why raises should not be determined on the basis of how many publications faculty members have generated each year.
- A new report from the American Association of University Professors chastises accreditors for staying mum about the drastic rise in the use of contingent labor in higher education, Audrey Williams June reports on The Chronicle’s News Blog.
- Thanks to Historiann for compiling this roundup of links about bullying and harassment in the academic workplace.
- Meanwhile, FemaleScienceProfessor says it’s “unrealistic” to think you can avoid “working with jerks.”
- According to a recent article in The Courier-Journal, officials at the University of Louisville say state budget cuts are forcing them to consider a salary freeze.
April 3, 2008
Faculty-Salary Variations Explained
Ever wonder why faculty salaries often vary widely within a school? MoneyLaw’s Jeffrey L. Harrison, a professor at the University of Florida College of Law, offers some good explanations, all of which bear little or no relation to the value of a given professor to the school. Here’s a sampling:
Playing favorites. Don’t tell me it does not happen. Deans “see” some people as more valuable to the school when they may just be more valuable to the dean. Years later someone may come along and ask why X’s salary is so high. In many instances it is because X was the darling of a past or current dean.
Unpredictable allocations. Suppose the lowest-paid person on your salary makes $100K. In September, your dean offers an entry-level person $102K assuming that for the next year there will be a 3% increase and the current people will be elevated above the newcomer. The legislature actually says no raises and now the entry person is ahead of more seasoned and more valuable people.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Thursday April 3, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [7]Tunnel vision matching offers. Deans get really focused on keeping particular people and lose sight of the market more generally. Suppose a hotshot gets a better offer elsewhere and your school matches or beats the offer. Equally productive people like where they teach and could but do not go out and get an offer. It’s an instant problem. Plus, the matching offers are often way too much. Does a college-town school really have to match the offer of a high-cost-of-living school? Of course not. Finally, and this is where tunnel vision hurts the most. As the bidding goes up and up I have yet to hear of a dean say “Wait! For that salary I could go into the market and get someone even better.”
March 26, 2008
Explaining Faculty Pay Gaps
- According to a paper presented at the American Educational Research Association’s annual meeting, the wage gap between male and female professors may be more a product of where they’re employed than what field they’re in, David Glenn reports on The Chronicle’s Web site.
The paper’s author, Paul D. Umbach, an assistant professor of higher education at the University of Iowa, examined data on nearly 8,000 faculty members at 472 four-year colleges and universities who were surveyed in 2003-4 by the National Study of Postsecondary Faculty, a project of the National Center for Education Statistics, and “found that the salary gap is more strongly driven by women’s concentration” at public, master’s-level institutions that place more of a premium on teaching than research and attract less external research money “than by their concentration in certain disciplines, like education and anthropology,” Glenn writes.
Of course, that’s not to say the gap isn’t partly due to sexism, Umbach pointed out:Even after controlling for women’s concentration in disciplines and institutions, Mr. Umbach found an unexplained salary gap between men and women—the sort of gap that might be caused in part by sheer discrimination on the part of administrators—of roughly 4.2 percent. …
“Women may take a double hit, or even a triple hit,” Mr. Umbach continued. “They’re taking a hit, first of all, of roughly 4.2 percent. And then they take a further hit depending on where they’re nested, and they tend to be nested in places where they’re rewarded less.”
Thoughts?
- And while we’re on the subject of faculty pay, be sure to read Pamela Johnston’s recent First Person column on the widely held misperception among nonacademics that faculty members earn high salaries.
March 14, 2008
Higher Pay for University Leaders, Professors in Britain
According to the results of annual survey released today, pay for university chiefs in Britain climbed 8 percent last year, making the average salary £177,844 ($358,226 in today’s dollars), The Guardian reports.
The highest earning head of a university is Sir Richard Sykes, pro-vice-chancellor at Imperial College in London, who earned £348,000 in 2006-7.
The poorest paid was Alex MacLennan on £87,550, who was principal at Bell College in Scotland before it merged with the University of Paisley to become the University of the West of Scotland last year, according to the pay league tables published in Times Higher Education magazine.
Meanwhile, the survey found that faculty pay in Britain rose, too, the reporter, Debbie Andalo, writes:
The same survey revealed that the average pay for a U.K. academic in 2005-6 was £41,128 — an increase of 12.6% compared with the previous 12 months.
The average pay for a professor is now £66,282 — more than the average MP earns (£61,820). Senior lecturers and researchers can expect to earn £44,916, while lecturers’ salary was put at £36,489. Researchers, meanwhile, earn £30,016.
Still, despite the good news, some academics and staff members are disturbed by the what they see as a growing salary disparity between university chiefs and everyone else, Andalo notes. She quotes Sally Hunt, the general secretary of the University and College Union, which represents academics, lecturers, instructors, researchers, administrators, librarians, and postgraduates in colleges and universities across Britain, as saying:
“At a time when some universities are pleading poverty and suggesting they may have problems fulfilling commitments on staff pay, it does seem a little distasteful that vice-chancellors have once again enjoyed above average pay increases.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Friday March 14, 2008 | Permalink | Comment“Vice-chancellors’ pay continues to fall outside of the type of scrutiny their staff are subjected to and how they merit big increases is never properly explained.”
March 10, 2008
Faculty Pay Is Up
According to an survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, faculty members’ average salaries climbed 4 percent this year, Audrey Williams June reports on The Chronicle’s Web site.
Law professors had, for the most part, the highest average pay, no matter what their status or where they worked. Full professors of law earned an average of $129,527 in 2007-8; associate professors earned $94,444, on average. Assistant professors of law earned an average of $79,684, a figure that was topped only by business professors at the same level, the survey found. …
Engineering and business professors were also well paid, while full professors in English; the visual and performing arts; and parks, recreation, leisure, and fitness studies made out the worst, June notes. Among new assistant professors, those in business fared the best, with an average salary of $86,640, she writes.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Monday March 10, 2008 | Permalink | CommentFebruary 27, 2008
Portland State U. and Part-Timers Reach a Compromise
Portland State University reached a tentative agreement last Friday with its part-time-faculty union after nine months of pay negotiations and nearly a month of mediation, according to the Vanguard, the university’s student newspaper:
According to a university statement, the part-time faculty union agreed on a tentative salary increase of 5 percent for the 2007-8 academic year and another 5 percent increase for 2008-9.
Disagreements over pay came to a head at the end of January when the Portland State chapter of the American Federation of Teachers (AFT) Local 3571, called the PSU Faculty Association, announced they would seek mediation over what leaders said was a stressful and negative collective bargaining process between AFT and PSU. Meditation is one of the steps necessary before faculty can strike.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Wednesday February 27, 2008 | Permalink | Comment [2]On February 14, part-time faculty and supporters picketed on campus in support of higher wages.
Faculty Members Give Union the Boot
Audrey June Williams has more details (see a previous blog entry) on the decision by faculty members at Michigan Technological University to drop their union. Read the full story.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Wednesday February 27, 2008 | Permalink | CommentFebruary 25, 2008
Administrators' Pay Jumps 4%
College administrators’ median base pay rose by 4 percent in the 2007-8 fiscal year, according to a new report by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, Beckie Supiano writes on The Chronicle’s Web site. Read more.
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Monday February 25, 2008 | Permalink | CommentFebruary 6, 2008
U. of Wisconsin to Up Chancellors' Pay?
The University of Wisconsin system’s Board of Regents is considering a proposal this week that would raise the pay ranges of its university leaders and system executives to bring their salaries more in line with those of their peers, according to an article by the Associated Press:
University of Wisconsin-Madison’s next leader could earn $42,500 to $125,000 more than Chancellor John Wiley under a plan meant to attract more candidates for the position.
Board President Mark Bradley said Monday the higher ranges are needed to attract top candidates as regents recruit new chancellors at the Madison, Parkside, and Whitewater campuses.
Mr. Wiley’s salary, for example, ranks far below that of his peers at public Big 10 universities and at institutions in California, Washington, and Texas, who earn an average of $437,000, the AP reporter notes.
If approved, the higher pay ranges would take effect July 1, 2008.
Given the current financial crunch, however, the proposal is likely to face stiff opposition from some state legislators, one Republican lawmaker told the AP reporter.
To which Mr. Bradley countered in an interview: “Well, how would a failed search go over? These people compete in national and international markets. If you aren’t realistic for what these types of jobs go for, then you will be out of the running.”
By Gabriela Montell | Posted on Wednesday February 6, 2008 | Permalink | CommentFebruary 4, 2008
Labor News
- State Sen. Jamie B. Raskin, a Montgomery County, Md., legislator and a Democrat, is introducing a bill today that would permit graduate students and adjunct faculty members at Maryland’s public universities to unionize, The Washington Post reports.
- Faculty members and administrators at St. Thomas University, in Fredericton, New Brunswick, have agreed to submit to binding arbitration, ending the strike that began over Christmas break, Karen Birchard writes on the News Blog. Classes will resume tomorrow.
- Meanwhile, contract talks between professors and administrators at the University of New Hampshire have stalled for the second time, Seacoastonline.com reports.