In 1997, University biology professor Vicki Chandler started getting job offers from other colleges.
She liked the University of Oregon, but the workload was heavy, classes were large and the pay was low.
She was talented, and other schools took notice. She got offers from three schools, the University of Arizona, the University of Minnesota and the University of California at Davis – and each offer promised a 60 percent pay increase.
“It’s not that those offers were high,” she said. “It’s that Oregon was so low.”
She accepted the job at the University of Arizona, and five years later was appointed to the prestigious National Academy of Sciences – a small collection of the world’s most talented scientists.
Faculty say the situation illustrates a growing trend: The University is losing its ability to retain talented teachers.
“The core of the University is the faculty, and this core has been badly neglected over an extended period, at great peril to the future of the institution,” says a sharply worded report from the faculty senate about how faculty are paid about 80 percent the salary of their peers at other institutions.
Including all ranks, the average faculty salary is roughly $50,000. Some tenured professors earn up to $150,000, and some non-tenured instructors earn as little as $28,000 annually.
The report, which was produced by the University Senate Budget Committee, reflects on progress the institution has made since 1999 toward greater faculty support.
It concludes that despite administrative rhetoric, paying faculty is not the administration’s top priority.
“Faculty salaries have not even held their share of the budget,” the report says. “(They’ve) increased at a rate slightly more than half the rate at which the university base budget has increased.”
The University’s base budget has grown about 60 percent since 1999, and faculty salaries have grown only 33.5 percent, according to the report.
But University President Dave Frohnmayer and Vice President for Finance and Administration Frances Dyke dispute those claims.
“That’s just wrong,” Frohnmayer said. “(Faculty pay) has been my top priority. And I’m on record for that time and time again.”
Frohnmayer said when the first faculty report came out in 1999, administrators and faculty agreed to push for increasing total compensation – not just salary dollars – to 95 percent the size of comparable institutions.
“But we have made progress up to about the 95 percent level,” he said. “That shows steady progress, but it also shows that we’ve been united on that as a priority.”
Frohnmayer also challenged the report’s suggestion that the total budget has grown at almost twice the rate of faculty salaries.
He said there are fixed costs that have increased that create an inaccurate comparison.
Role of the state
There’s no doubt that the University’s professors are paid less than other schools, and a big reason for that is low state support.
Roughly 20 years ago, the state provided 33 percent of the University’s operations, 22 percent came from students and 19 percent from private donors.
Now that scenario has flipped.
Less than 14 percent of the University’s funding comes from the state, students pay 33 percent of the budget and private donors cover an estimated 29 percent.
Faculty understand that struggle.
“We recognize … that the administration has labored mightily to keep the University afloat in what are (seemingly always) tough times,” the report says.
Nevertheless, it doesn’t change the fact that faculty have “lost ground,” according to the report.
“From my perspective … it’s that in eight years of saying that faculty salaries are a priority, the administration has never articulated a strategy for reaching this goal, while they have lots of strategies for other agendas (sports, diversity, etc.)” former Senate President Peter Keyes wrote to the Emerald in an e-mail.
Keyes reflected on a situation in the architecture school where administrators tried to hire an untenured, assistant professor coming from a lower-ranking school than the University of Oregon.
“We couldn’t hire her, as she had already been offered more money by another university than our full professors with 25 years plus experience make,” he wrote.
AAU membership
As talented faculty such as Vicki Chandler leave the University for higher paying jobs, faculty question how long the University can remain in the Association of American Universities, the most prestigious association of the top 62 research universities in the nation.
The University has been a member since 1969, and Frohnmayer serves on the association’s executive board.
Frohnmayer said there’s never been a whisper about the University of Oregon being expelled from the association.
“There’s no suggestion whatsoever that faculty salary levels have anything to do with our standing in the AAU,” Frohnmayer said. “They do bear on our overall competitiveness.”
Barry Toiv, AAU spokesman, said that although he could not comment on membership in the association, he did say that no university has ever been expelled from the AAU in its 108-year history.
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