Dear Colleagues:

We have published a salary survey every year since 1974, the only exceptions being those years without raises. All the data comes from the UI Budget Office and the UI Office of Institutional Research and Assessment. Salary data and analyses going back to FY2001 can be found at www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ salaries.htm.

From 619 Ranked Faculty to 506 over 12 Years: Doing Much More with Much Less

During the academic year 1996-97 there were 619 faculty in the ranks of assistant, associate, and full professor. The number dropped to 477 during 2004-05. This year there are 506 ranked professors, a net reduction of 113 over 12 years.  This means that UI students are enrolling in much larger classes and also being taught by more TAs and lecturers.  At least the budget outlay for faculty salaries, stagnant over the period 1996-2005, did increase from $29 million in FY05 to $37.1 million in FY09.

Average Salaries Rose 3.3% in 2008-09--but still 18.4 % behind Research II Institution Average; Professors at -21.4%; Associates, -16.5 %; Assistants, -14.4%

According to UI Office of Institutional Research and Assessment, UI faculty salaries rose 3.3 percent in 2008-09. UI faculty are 18.4 percent behind the national average, a lost 1.6 percent from 2007-2008.  With regard to the national averages in Table II, we are now back where we were in 2006-07.  Full professors are 21.4 percent behind, losing 1.3 percent from last year; associate professors lost 1.4 percent at 16.5 percent; and at -14.4 percent assistant professors lost 3.6 percent from 2007-2008.

Full Professors in some Disciplines are over 30 percent behind Research II Institutions

Here is the list of UI departments whose full professors that are more than 25 percent behind national Research II Institution salary levels: philosophy (-35.3 %); psychology (-34.5%); political science (-33.9%); management/ marketing (-32.7%); sociology-anthropology (-31.7%);  civil engineering (-30.4%);electrical engineering (-29.7%); ag economics (-28.9%); foreign languages (-28.4%);  materials science (-28.1%); mechanical engineering (27.2%); chemical engineering (-26.8%); statistics (-25.9%); accounting (-28.7%); and history (-24.9%). For the complete list by discipline all ranks, by college all ranks, and average in each  rank see <www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ OKState09.htm>.

Some Gains with Peer Institutions in 2007-2008:
Professors then behind 8 percent; Associates, -5.6 percent; Assistants, -7.4 percent

Please note that all figures for peer institutions in Table IV are from 2007-2008, and we can expect to see these differentials increase we have the 2008-2009 data.  We suspect an error in the average of $47,000 for UI instructor pay. It is significant to note that while UI full professors ranked 9 out of 12 peer institutions, former President White's salary ranked sixth.

Top Administrative Raises up 260% over 27 Years vs. Full Professors at 198%;
CPI is 215

Those who justify huge administrative salaries say: "This is what the market demands, and we are still paying less than peer institutions." If faculty salaries had been keeping up, this would have been persuasive. But, as the State Board of Education continues to approve these administrative increases each year, faculty salaries have fallen further and further behind.

In 1995 we thought that we had succeeded in curbing excessive increases in administrative raises, but as Tables III & V indicate below, they have now outstripped full professors by 62 percent over 27 years. During the period 1990-1995 raises for the higher administration rose by 21.3 percent compared to 16.5 percent for faculty. When the AFT made these increases an issue in 1995, the next year administrator pay rose only 2.33 percent, about 3 percent lower than the faculty. This year the average raise for them was 2.9 percent compared to the 3.3 percent for all faculty. 

White's $291,912 was a 411 percent increase over Gibb's 1981 Salary;
From Three Times to over Seven Times Entry Level Assistant Professors

In 1972 new assistant professors made about $10,000, and then President Ernest Hartung made about $30,000. When President Richard Gibb was hired in 1977, his salary had risen to four times entry level faculty. (In a 1977 interview with the AFT president, Gibb contended that top faculty should make more than he did.) Faculty complaints became more vocal when Elizabeth Zinser's FY 94 salary was $125,039, five times entry level salaries. Zinser promised that her "high tide" wage would float all faculty boats, but instead our boats have been swamped. The differential with entry level faculty has now risen to over seven times.

Over Ten Years University Executive Pay Rose 35 percent Nation-Wide (inflation adjusted); Faculty Raises were only 5 Percent; Endowments Grew 82 percent

A recent Chronicle of Higher Education article analyzed chief executive pay in the context of CEO pay.  Here is the most relevant passage: "Inflation-adjusted salaries of chief executives in higher education increased by more than 35 percent from 1995-2005, while the inflation-adjusted salaries of faculty members increased a mere 5 percent. Inflation-adjusted endowments grew an average of 82 percent during that time. These figures raise a question of priorities: if institutional endowment funds and presidential compensation grew at substantial rates, why should faculty compensation remain so depressed?"

Over 12 Years, 76 Faculty in 20 Disciplines have moved on to Greener Pastures

Several years ago Rep. Shirley Ringo asked the AFT to make a list of UI faculty who have left for better jobs. Data gained from an informal e-mail survey over several years now indicate that over 12 years, 76 faculty in 20 disciplines have moved on to greener pastures.  Plant, Soil, and Entomological Sciences reports a 20 percent attrition rate, and many faculty are actively looking for jobs elsewhere.  Biological sciences has lost at least eight faculty in ten years and many of their searches fail because of noncompetitive salaries.  The full list can be found here.

Promotion Increments Help Full Professors, but Associate salaries are still Compressed

For many years the faculty union urged the administration to increase the promotion increments in order to alleviate salary compression in the upper ranks.  The increments used to be $1,000 for promotion to associate and $1,500 to full professor.  We take some credit for the fact that the Hoover administration increased those increments to $5,000 and $6,500 respectively.  Recently they were boosted to $6,000 and $8,500, and finally we are seeing an appropriate gap between associate and full professor salaries. But associate professor pay is now far too compressed with reference to assistants and that problem must be addressed.

General Education Funds Going to UI Athletics up 336% since 1987; Same Funds to
Idaho Higher Education increased only 159%; AD's Salary up 31% last 4 years

Even with the worst records in football and men's basketball, UI athletics continues to be favored over all other units of the university. Even though men's sports were supposed to pay for new women's teams, gender equity from the state has increased 604 percent over 11 years.  Unlike most units athletics has also received substantial "institutional" support, income earned on UI investments, and this amount has increased 83 percent in 11 years.  The athletic director's salary, also from general education funds, has increased 31 percent over the last very lean four years.  Read all the figures and analysis here. 

Across the Board Raises before Merit Pay; otherwise Faculty Lose Pay to Inflation

The Hoover administration committed itself to "across the board increases" for "all employees showing at least satisfactory performance." This promise stands first in a list that includes promotions, merit pay, and equity adjustments. The AFT position has always been that as a long as salaries do not keep up with the cost of living, then merit pay is a moot point.  When legislative raises are applied according to merit, many faculty end up with pays cuts because of the decline in general buying power.  Merit pay must be funded by a separate appropriation.

Collective Bargaining is the Only Answer

During the late 1960s there was a large expansion of our public higher education system. This was good for educational opportunity, but bad in the way that this system developed according to a business model. University presidents became less like academic leaders and more like CEOs, and their salaries, as well as those of their management teams, have skyrocketed. A natural response to the industrialization of the university was the rise of faculty unions. They now represent a large majority of faculty in states where collective bargaining is allowed. Idaho, unfortunately, is not one of them.

A central feature of these contracts is a salary step system that guarantees cost of living increases as well as raises above that in good years. If UI faculty had gone for our salary step proposal in 1976 (see Table II), we would now be at the top of our peers rather than at the bottom. Furthermore, faculty without "market value"--those in the library, humanities, and social sciences--would be making a decent professional wage.

Sincerely,

Robert Dickow, President                                                                                              Music
Dickow@uidaho.edu  

Lynne Haagensen, Vice President                                                                                  Art
(lynneh@uidaho.edu)    

Nick Gier, Secretary                                                                                 Philosophy(Emeritus)
(ngier@uidaho.edu)

Sarah Nelson, Treasurer                                                                               Foreign Languages (snelson@uidaho.edu)

Local 3215, American Federation of Teachers, AFL-CIO www.home.roadrunner.com/~nickgier/ift.htm  

TABLE I: NATIONAL AND MOUNTAIN WEST AVEREAGES

FOR CATEGORY I* PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS, 2007-2008

*Ph.D. granting **American Association of University Professors (www.aaup.org)

TABLE II: UI FACULTY SALARY STEP SYSTEM (UIS³)

UIS³-7: Instructors and Lectures.  All part-time faculty would join the scale and their salaries would be prorated; UIS³-8: Senior Instructors.  Any faculty member who has served satisfactorily at UIS³-7 for ten years would be promoted to this rank and would be eligible for tenure; Senior Instructors who perform satisfactorily for ten years will then move to UIS³-9. UIS³-9: Assistant Professors; UIS³-10 &11: Associate Professors; UIS³-12&13: Professor; UIS³-14&15: Senior Professor is a new rank based on superior teaching and research. Adapted from Seattle-Tacoma GS Salary Schedules at http://www.opm.gov/oca/06tables/ indexGS.asp 

TABLE III: AVERAGE SALARY BY RANK 1981-2008
Compared to National Average of Research II Institution Salaries
198 Percent Increase for Full Professors Over 27 Years; Consumer Price Index at 215

TABLE IV: PEER INSTITUTIONS BY RANK & ACADEMIC YEAR (2007-2008)*

Professors are 8% behind; Associates, -5.6%; Assistants, -7.4%; Instructors, 5.6% ahead

*Data from American Association of University Professors in Academe (March, April, 2008)

TABLE V: ADMINISTRATIVE SALARIES (1981 to 2008)
260 Percent Increase in 11 Positions Over 27 Years; CPI 215; first number is FY09 raise 

TABLE VI: GENERAL EDUCATION FUNDS, INSTITUTIONAL SUPPORT,

AND ADMINISTRATIVE FEES FOR UI ATHLETICS

9 PERCENT: AVERAGE OF STATE FUNDS IN ATHLETICS BUDGETS NATIONALLY (D. L. Fulks, "Revenues and Expenses of Division I and Division II Intercollegiate Athletic Program—Financial Trends and Relationship 1999," Indianapolis, IN: NCAA Publishing, 2000.

vs.

23 PERCENT FOR UI ATHLETICS IN FY 99 ($1,661,000 out of a total budget of $7,260,015) and still at about 20 percent.