Review and Update of the
Report of the Issue Group on Faculty Compensation (2000)
Faculty Economic Welfare and Retirement Committee
April 22, 2005
Gary Tiedeman, Chair
Irma Delson
Michael Fernandez
Bob Wess
Stephanie Bernell
Mary Flahive
Alan Acock
Karen Guthreau
Polly Jeneva
Pam Broadus
Sociology (Emeritus)
Oceanic & Atmospheric Sciences (Ret.)
Center for Water & Environ. Sustainability
English
Public Health
Mathematics
Human Development & Family Studies
Forest Resources
Liberal Arts Student Services
Employee Benefits Manager (Ex Officio)
In May of 2000, an Issue Group on Faculty Compensation, co-chaired by Steve Davis
and L.J. Koong, submitted its Final Report to the Faculty Senate and the OSU
administration. Headlining the report was a plea that faculty salary increases be made a
top priority commitment for OSU. The current Faculty Economic Welfare and
Retirement Committee has been asked to review and update the 2000 Report. The
present document provides our findings and conclusions.
FACULTY SALARIES
The 2000 Report stated as Basic Principle #1 that “Average faculty compensation . . .
shall be increased and maintained at levels of sustained competitive parity with
comparator institutions based on rank, discipline, and the nature of duties performed.”
(See attachment, or at http://oregonstate.edu/dept/senate/committees/other/faccomp/
finalreport/report.html.) Similarly, Goal #1 in the Report stated, under the heading
“Where Do We Want To Be?”: “Faculty compensation should be increased to 100 % of
the mean of our peer institutions over the next three biennia.”
Five years later, the gap between OSU and its peer institutions has instead widened.
Whereas OSU salary range spanned 84.4% to 95.9% of comparator averages in the year
2000 (depending on rank), it now spans only 81.4% to 94.8% in the latest available
figures (2004-2005 salaries). Figures by academic rank by institution appear in our Table
1; these may be directly contrasted to the figures provided in the comparable Table 1 in
the 2000 document.
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Table 1. 2004-2005 Faculty Salary Data (in thousands) for OSU and its Peer Institutions
INSTITUTION INSTRUCTOR ASST.PROF. ASSOCIATE
Colorado State
---$57.9
$67.0
Cal – Davis
---$60.7
$68.8
N. Carolina St.
$45.5
$61.9
$70.3
Purdue
$46.5
$62.9
$70.6
Iowa State
$37.5
$59.6
$70.6
Michigan State
$33.4
$59.7
$73.7
Oregon State
$38.6
$54.8
$62.4
Mean of peers
$40.7
$60.4
$70.2
OSU/mean
94.8%
90.7%
88.9%
% change from
-1.1
-0.9
+1.8
year 2000
FULL BENEFITS
$90.0
20.1%
$103.3
30.3%
$94.8
21.7%
$100.7
31.2%
$93.3
28.2%
$101.8
34.1%
$79.2
37.9%
$97.3
27.6%
81.4%
-3.0
(Academe, March-April, 2005)
The same information, presented in terms of rank order placement, is shown in Table 2.
Table 2. 2004-2005 OSU and Peer Institution Salaries in Rank Order
INSTITUTION
Colorado State
Cal – Davis
N. Carolina St.
Purdue
Iowa State
Michigan State
Oregon State
INSTRUCTOR
----------2
1
4
5
3
ASST. PROF.
6
3
2
1
5
4
7
ASSOC. PROF. FULL PROF.
6
6
5
1
4
4
2
3
2
5
1
2
7
7
As displayed in the far right column of Table 1, OSU’s “Benefits as a percentage of
salary” ranks highest among comparator institutions. It is occasionally speculated or
claimed that such generosity in benefits provides a compensating off-balance to low
salaries. The listed “Benefits” percentages cannot be used as accurate multipliers since
actual percentage varies by rank, e.g., health care benefit costs are the same regardless of
salary. We have nevertheless chosen to utilize them as rudimentary multipliers, for
illustrative purposes only. The calculation indicates that the combination of salary and
benefits is sufficient to elevate OSU past Colorado State University at all three
professorial rank levels and past North Carolina State at two of the three. More
important, however, OSU still remains short of the mean of peer institutions at the
following percentage levels:
Assistant Professor 97.9%
Associate Professor 96.0%
Full Professor
87.8%
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In other words, even when adjusted to include the total of salary plus benefits, OSU
faculty still fall from 2.1% to 12.2% beneath the average of colleagues at peer
institutions.
Returning to salaries as such, we present another quantitative perspective on OSU’s
backward movement over the last five years. We shall use the term “Catch-up Dollars”
to indicate the number of dollars required to elevate an average OSU position (by
academic rank) to the average of peer institutions for that rank. Except for the curious
anomaly of Associate Professors, for which we are unable to provide any rational
explanation, more “Catch-up Dollars” would be required to erase the gap in 2005 than
would have been required in 2000. (See Table 3)
Table 3. Dollars required (in thousands) to raise OSU salaries to peer institution means.
YEAR
2000
2005
INSTRUCTOR
$1.4
$2.1
ASST. PROF.
$4.3
$5.6
ASSOC. PROF. FULL PROF.
$7.8
$13.1
$7.8
$18.1
The 2000 Report included, as its Table 2, a listing of national and OSU average annual
salary increases for the years 1989-1999. Our update appears here as Table 4.
Table 4. National and OSU Annual Salary Increases, 1989-2004
YEAR National Annual % Increase [1]
1989
7.3
1990
6.6
1991
4.3
1992
3.6
1993
4.2
1994
4.6
1995
4.0
1996
3.5
1997
4.3
1998
4.8
1999
4.8
2000
5.3
2001
5.0
2002
4.3
2003
3.1
2004
4.5
4.64
Average
OSU Annual % Increase [2]
5.0
7.4
6.2
6.2
0
0
3.0
6.0
0
6.0
2.0
5.25
2.0
4.0
0
0
3.32
[1] Academe, March-April 2005
[2] OSU Office of Budgets and Planning, April 2005
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The list of figures displayed in Table 4 prompts several observations pertinent to our
topic. Foremost, of course, OSU lags well behind national averages. Next, in the span of
nearly two decades, OSU faculty have received zero salary increases 31 percent of the
time (5 years of 16 annual occasions). Third, average OSU increases across comparable
frames of time have progressively shrunk, and the deficit relative to national averages has
grown, both as depicted in the following breakdown of Table 4 content:
1989-1993 Average Increase:
1994-1999 Average Increase:
2000-2004 Average Increase:
U.S.
OSU
5.20%
4.33%
4.44%
4.96%
2.83%
2.25%
Difference
-0.24
-1.50
-2.19
It is this pattern, of course, that creates and feeds the escalating “Catch-up Dollar”
problem cited above. That said, we are informed that the current forecast is for 2%
increases for each of 2006 and 2007. The non-recuperative effect of such a “repair” is
self-evident.
REVISED BASIC PRINCIPLES
The 2000 Report listed and discussed eight basic principles pertaining to salary
compensation. We have elected to reduce the list to four to accentuate our commitment
to the core principle formulated so well by our predecessors:
To assure quality at Oregon State University, it is essential that employee
compensation and academic infrastructure are maintained at levels that will
promote scholarship, support instructional programs, encourage retention of our
best employees, and help sustain and improve academic quality.
The four principles are:
1. Average faculty compensation (salary + benefits) shall be increased and
maintained at a level of sustained competitive parity matching or exceeding the
average for comparator (peer) institutions, based on rank, discipline, and the
nature of duties performed.
This statement of principle essentially duplicates Principle #1 in the 2000
document except that we aspire to salaries not just matching but surpassing the
average of our peers, if for no other reason than to introduce a “better target to
shoot for.” Whether matching or surpassing peer salaries, the principle rests upon
the simple proposition that an institution aspiring to nationally and internationally
recognized excellence cannot reasonably hope to attain such a status in the
company of faculty compensation which ranks significantly below the norm of
the nation’s distinguished public institutions.
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2. All campus-wide salary adjustments shall include a cost of living component.
We consider it disingenuous and unprincipled to compound a condition of substandard salaries by depriving faculty who exhibit satisfactory performance of the
opportunity to stay apace of cost of living. While merit recognition is an essential
component of overall salary adjustment, it should never have first priority.
3. The merit component of salary adjustments shall be based upon distinguished
performance.
“The vast majority of academic and professional faculty, those who serve the
University with distinction, shall be eligible for merit increases. Merit increases
shall be distributed on the basis of performance in the realms of scholarship,
teaching, service, and administration or other appropriate criteria based on
discipline, rank, and the nature of duties performed. Individual merit increases
shall be allocated according to systematic principles and procedures determined in
each unit with the approval of the Dean and Provost or other senior
administrators.” (Issue Group on Faculty Compensation, Final Report, 2000)
4. Faculty compensation shall address salary compression and inequities by rank,
discipline, gender, and college.
Even institutions unhampered by the stigma of sub-standard salaries are plagued
by perpetual issues of salary inequity of a variety of forms. Inequities by
discipline, by gender, and by college, in particular, compound the base problem of
salary insufficiency, as does the market-driven phenomenon of salary
compression. Attention to these discrepancies is easily lost amidst the more
fundamental quest for parity, and it is an admittedly difficult task to juggle so
many different balls all at once. Nevertheless, we believe the attempt is
necessary. Otherwise, it is too easy to let such long-standing inequities be
ignored once again. By the same token, basic protections for all faculty providing
satisfactory service must be honored while requisite adjustments proceed.
OTHER COMMENTS
We applaud the efforts of our predecessors to lay the groundwork for salary improvement
in two sections of the original report that we consider beyond the bounds of our current
assignment. One of those sections was entitled “What Will Be Required To Get There.”
It attempted to estimate dollar values for the achievement of salary parity within six
years. We would only redirect the reader’s attention to our Table 3 and cross-reference
the $76.1 million projected as necessary (over six years) even under 2000 conditions.
Clearly, a significant economic investment would be required even to achieve, let alone
surpass, parity with peer institutions. Extrapolations from our predecessors’ work
suggest that as much as $30 million per biennium might now be required, with the
amount, of course, growing larger with each biennium.
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The other section provided in the 2000 document was entitled “What Are The Possible
Funding Sources?” Suggested sources may be found within that document itself. To
repeat, we make no effort to update that information, having defined it as beyond the
province of our current assignment.
CONCLUSIONS
In conclusion, the worsening condition of faculty salaries at OSU since 2000 relative to
comparator/peer institutions only adds to already widespread and deepening concerns
among faculty over continuing salary inequities (as evidenced most recently, for
example, in the 2004 report, “The Path to Parity for Women at Oregon State
University”*.) We concur in the strongest possible terms with the authors of the original
Issue Group report in our plea that OSU administration make a commitment to place
faculty salary increases not as a top priority but as the top priority, with appropriate
attention to correcting inequities by rank, discipline, gender, and college and to salary
compression. We have each personally experienced the inability to hire outstanding
faculty because of OSU’s weak competitive dollar. We have likewise each experienced
the loss of valued, outstanding colleagues to other institutions ready and willing to hire at
nationally competitive rates. We prefer to experience no more such losses, and we
sincerely hope that the future members of this committee will not find themselves writing
an even more desperate update report in another five years.
* http://oregonstate.edu/admin/comdiv/Path_to_Parity_2004_OSU.pdf
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