Correction appended
While pay raises for college administrators across the nation beat inflation for the 11th year in a row, faculty salaries lagged behind, according to reports by two national collegiate associations.
While the two studies, one from the American Association of University Professors and the other from the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources, highlight national trends, the disparity is also evident at the University of Oregon.
Salaries for full professors are only about 80 percent of those at comparable institutions, and they have grown marginally since 1999.
The straggling faculty salaries at the University have pushed it closer to becoming a “stepping-stone” institution, where faculty members stay only until they’re good enough to move on, said Marie Vitulli, chair of the University Senate Budget Committee.
That committee completed a report this year on faculty salaries that concluded the University is in “crisis” because it slipped into the Carnegie Foundation’s second tier of research institutions, and its membership in the prestigious Association of American Universities is in “jeopardy,” according to the report.
The cause, it says, is in part because talented faculty are taking higher paying jobs at other institutions.
“You can’t have a premier institution without premier faculty,” Vitulli said.
But while faculty salaries, which make up roughly 10 percent of the University’s overall budget, grow slowly, pay for the University’s top officials has risen with the market.
Administrative pay
The total compensation for University President Dave Frohnmayer is $544,621, although more than half of that is covered by donations from the University of Oregon Foundation, and that number includes value estimates for other non-monetary benefits.
Compensation records kept at the Knight Library offer a window into how other administrators are compensated, including Vice President and Provost Linda Brady, who is paid roughly $267,500 annually, up from the $210,884 paid to her predecessor John Moseley before he retired in 2005.
Other officials have seen their salaries rise.
The president and CEO of the UO Foundation, the private non-profit organization that manages the University’s $455 million endowment, has received a 113 percent pay raise over the past five years, including a $49,897 benefits package.
Foundation President Karen Kreft’s salary, which rose from $120,000 in 2002 to $256,000 in 2007, has grown alongside the salaries for the position at other Pacific 10 Conference schools.
Kreft’s salary isn’t paid using state money like faculty salaries are, however. Her pay comes from the foundation’s share of returns from the endowment.
At Oregon State University, the foundation’s former president, James Reinmuth, was paid $159,952 in 2004. In 2006, his successor, J. Michael Goodwin, was paid $303,935.
At Washington State University, the foundation president is paid $258,094, according to tax documents.
“The desire is to compensate someone appropriately to avoid a situation where people aren’t walking out the door for a higher salary,” said Jay Namyet, UO foundation chief investment officer.
That argument works well for administrators, but not so well for faculty, Vitulli said.
“They’re dismissing it in the same situation,” she said. “You can’t hire talented faculty unless you’re paying them the market (value). Yet with administrators we try to do better than the market. Why? Why the disconnect?”
The foundation’s president needs competitive pay because the foundation, which manages roughly $800 million in assets, is becoming more complex, said Keith Thomson, chair of the UO Foundation’s board of trustees.
Kreft has been foundation president since 1999. Under her leadership, the foundation has more than doubled the size of its assets and created four limited liability corporations, including National Championship Properties to oversee development of the basketball arena. The foundation accepts nearly all the Campaign Oregon donations and disburses them back to the University. It also ranks among the top 20 in the nation for the size of its investment returns, Namyet said.
“I think the success speaks for itself,” he said.
A four-person leadership committee on the foundation’s board of trustees determines Kreft’s salary. Namyet is not a member of that committee but supported her level of compensation.
“It’s not a matter of paying too little or too much, but it’s about understanding what market is and being able to attract and retain the best people for a very complex and sensitive job,” Namyet said.
Paying faculty
In 2000, the University Senate’s Budget Committee completed a “white paper,” which encouraged the University to raise faculty salaries from about 85 percent of the size of compensation packages at comparative institutions to 95 percent.
Although total compensation, which includes benefits such as health care, has reached 95 percent of comparative institutions, faculty pay has not.
“The benefits have gotten more costly but we haven’t gotten better benefits,” said Vitulli, chair of the budget committee.
In nearly a decade, faculty salaries have only inched forward three percentage points on a scale that compares them with other schools. The salary for a full-time professor rose from 78 percent the size of comparative salaries to 81 percent. The average salary for faculty varies widely but can be as low as $30,000 or as high as $150,000, according to salary information located in the Knight Library.
Frohnmayer lobbied the State Board of Higher Education to release $28 million for faculty salaries that has been withheld this year to buffer the slowing economy.
Even though only about $5 million would go directly to the University, it’s enough to have an impact – the Senate Budget Committee’s report said raising faculty salaries to that of comparative schools would cost $10.2 million. It’s unclear whether the University will gain access to that money.
“That’s the state’s priorities,” said foundation board chair Thomson. “All we can do is continue to try and testify why it’s necessary for them to support higher ed.”
But that’s not all the University can do.
Campaign Oregon, the University’s now $766 million fundraising campaign, has raised nearly $101 million for faculty support, according to a press release.
“With the decreasing support from the state,” Thomson said, “it makes it even more imperative that we have a well-rounded development office.”
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This article originally stated the Washington State University president works part-time. The WSU president works full-time, 12 months a year.