New faculty salary allocation policy at
WSU:
Maintaining real salaries
The Faculty Senate debated and then approved a new policy for
allocating faculty salaries at WSU during the 2007-8 academic
year. Significant events were as follows:
- A report on the status of faculty salaries at WSU was presented
to the Faculty Senate on November 8, 2007. The report was
prepared by
an ad hoc committee appointed
in Spring 2007 by the Senate's Executive
Committee. The full Salary Report was widely circulated and can
be found on the Senate's web site
or at http://www.wsu.edu/~collins/facultysalaryreport/.
- The Faculty Affairs Committee discussed the report extensively
and recommended a new salary allocation policy for approval by the
Faculty Senate. The
underlying new principle is that the university should commit to
maintain real salaries of faculty members (that is, salaries corrected
for the costs of inflation). In brief, under the new policy, new
allocations up to the contemporaneous level of inflation would be
distributed across the board, with all allocations in excess
of that level distributed solely on the basis of merit of
performance. As an addendum to the Salary Report, the Faculty
Affairs Committee
commissioned a statistical study of changes in real salaries of
professors who were faculty members in both 1997 and 2007.
Results of this study, circulated to Senators on April 2, 2008,
showed that 16% of all faculty received merit-based salary
increases at less than the level of inflation ovet the ten year
period. As another finding, 29% of those who
had been associate professors in both years received cumulative salary
increases over the ten year period at below the level of
inflation. Results of the study
can be found at http://www.wsu.edu/~collins/facultysalaryreport/1997-2007.pdf.
- The Senate considered the proposed policy extensively at meetings
on February 21, March 6 and April 3, 2008, finally voting on April
3, with 30 senators in favor of the new policy and 22 opposed..
At this writing, further disposition of the Senate-approved policy is
unclear. My understanding, is that such
a policy ordinarily should appear on the agenda of the Board of
Regents, with discussion including a presentation by Senate officers
and recommendation for approval or disapproval by the President and/or
Provost. However, up to this time the Board of
Regents has not formally considered the Senate's action of April 3,
2008.
14 March 2009, Gary S.
Collins (collins
at wsu.edu). Disclaimer:
all opinions expressed above are my own and do not necessarily
represent those of any other person or organization Gary
Collins's home page.