The annual pay raise for faculty will not keep up with inflation, a step that several professors argue is part of a trend neglecting their compensation and benefit packages. Administrators maintain that cuts are being made across the board as the University tries to economize, and that faculty salaries are comparable to those at peer schools.
“The whole thing is about priorities and where the University is willing to put its money, and it seems like the library acquisitions and faculty are not high priorities,” said Professor of Chemistry David Westmoreland.
Faculty voiced their frustration with next year’s budget at a faculty meeting last week. The budget will give the faculty a 3.5 percent raise. However seasonally adjusted inflation for the first three months of 2006 was 4.3 percent, according to Associate Professor of Molecular Biology and Biochemistry Michael McAlear, citing the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
The library acquisitions fund will also not keep pace with inflation next year.
McAlear, a member of the Compensation and Benefits Committee, said that the University ranks between eighth and eleventh in average faculty salaries in a study of 15 peer schools.
Additionally, the University ranks near the bottom in benefits and pension contributions based on publicly available financial data.
According to McAlear, the president’s salary ranks second on that list of schools.
Administrators said that there are many constraints on the University’s budget, and faculty salaries have been increased as much as possible.
“As we set the budget, we have to make difficult choices,” said Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost Judith Brown. “For example, financial aid for students is by far the largest single expenditure in our operating budget. Do we cut financial aid or raise tuition in order to increase faculty salaries? Most Wesleyan faculty ranks in the top half of their peers among the 16 institutions in our comparison set.”
The faculty pay increase for next year was originally set at three percent, but was eventually increased to 3.5 percent when the University freed up more funds.
According to Vice President for Finance Nathan Peters, cuts were made in other areas of the budget due to escalating costs over which the University has no control, like medical expenses.
“We held most discretionary operating budgets at this year’s spending levels,” Peters said. “For example, library acquisitions and technology budgets did not increase.”
Peters said that the budget for utilities and health care increased, because costs in those areas have risen. Meanwhile, he said, the University is trying to save on major maintenance and will not fill the positions of six staff members who are leaving.
Addressing the faculty’s concerns, Brown said that the recent construction on campus should not be taken as a sign that the University is putting buildings before professors. According to Brown, the new buildings were funded by special construction loans for educational institutions, for which interest rates have been extremely low for the past few years. The University has been able to take advantage of the low rates for construction projects, she said, but the loans cannot be used for other purposes.
Several members of the faculty argued that the University budget is tight every year, and that they need to be considered.
“It has always been the case that salary discussions are left for the end of the year and we’re always told, ‘It’s a tight year and we’d like to do more for you, but we can’t,’” McAlear said.
For now, McAlear said he thinks raising awareness of compensation issues is the first step toward coming up with a better package for faculty, although the proposed increase will not change. The next year’s budget will be approved at the Board of Trustees’ meeting on May 26.
In the long-term, McAlear said he believes that structural change is needed so that faculty can have some power to negotiate salaries, rather than trusting the University to give them a fair compensation package.
“I’m not saying we should be the best paid faculty,” McAlear said. “I just think we should have competitive salaries and competitive benefits. It’s healthy for the institution.”
This week, Westmoreland has reserved a room for further faculty discussions of the compensation issue.
“It’s a chance for us to air our views and see how we want to respond,” he said.
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