Even before a hiring freeze in October 2008 locked in faculty salaries at their current rate, a Miami University committee had been at work for months uncovering a growing disparity between salary increases for Miami professors versus steeper increases for Miami administrators.
Last week, the Faculty Welfare Committee (FWC) released its final report of faculty salary increase discrepancies during the past ten years.
The report shows salary increases for professors at Miami have been on the low side when compared with averages from Ohio's public universities for the past few years.
Salaries for full professors at Miami increased 11.2 percent from 2004 to 2007, while the average increase at Ohio public universities was 13.3 percent, according to the report.
Additionally, the salary of Miami's president rose about 13 percent from 2004 to 2007, while the average increase at Ohio's public institutions hovered around 30 percent.
According to FWC Chair Sante Matteo, the committee submitted a provisional report to university senate in December 2008 to raise awareness of faculty salaries for the last 10 years. He said the senate postponed discussion until Jan. 26, when a revised report would be submitted, according to Matteo.
"There was discussion in the senate, but it was somewhat limited," Matteo said.
Matteo said the FWC submitted a third and final report April 13 to university senate, who accepted it without any discussion or comment.
"I think (that) means that the report was accepted, as were the recommendations," Matteo said.
Matteo said it takes a study like the FWC's to raise awareness of the situation.
"Probably the administrators themselves (don't realize)," Matteo said. "Not only are the faculty now making less than professors in other institutions, but the trend is downward. Not that we're at the bottom, but the curve is going down for us, and for the groups that we compare ourselves to, it's going up."
The committee asked that the report be disseminated to the university community and be sent to the university secretary, which Matteo said he hopes will act as a mechanism to spread the information.
With the budget crisis at hand, there is question of when or if action will be taken to answer questions of differences in salaries among departments, positions, genders and administrative positions.
"I don't think any action has been taken," Matteo said. "It's a curious moment because of the budget crisis. All salaries are frozen."
Miami's Provost Jeffrey Herbst said because the report is fairly new, he is still reviewing and discussing it with colleagues and the committee.
"I very much appreciated the report," Herbst said. "This is what (Miami) can use over the long term."
Matteo said Kate Rousmaniere, chair of the executive committee of university senate, would relay the information from the report to the board of trustees.
"I think what needs to happen now is Professor Rousmaniere will point out this report, and how much emphasis she puts on it depends on how the trustees will react to it," Matteo said. "The report will have to speak for itself."
Rousmaniere said she would talk about the report with the board of trustees.
"The (board of trustees) are sort of so high up that talking to them is not particularly useful," Rousmaniere said. "They'll say 'Oh wow, that's bad,' but it's not particularly useful."
Rousmaniere made suggestions for the FWC for the next step in working with the data they've found.
"I have great concerns about faculty and administrator raises," Rousmaniere said. "One hundred percent who have lost their jobs in the last few months have been staff. I think we have to work pretty carefully with this."
The report made several recommendations, including making the report public not only to the university, but administrators at the highest level, as well as requesting that the FWC receive reports on matters pertaining to faculty compensation routinely, rather than the FWC having to request the necessary information.
"We debated for quite a while on what specific recommendations to make, if any, and we ended up not making very specific recommendations," Matteo said. "Realizing that we're really an advisory committee, our job is to shine some light on the situation and then hope that others who have more power will take action on it."
Matteo said the report was to inform the community and administrators of the information the committee found.
"Our hope is one that the community become aware of the discrepancies, not to confuse the administrators that there is a conspiracy going on," Matteo said.
Other figures listed in the report include the provost's salary as increasing 12 percent between 2005 and 2007, while Ohio public universities' average increased by 17.61 percent.
For associate professors, the increase at Miami between 2004 and 2007 was 9.8 percent while Ohio's average was 12.3 percent; and for assistant professor salaries, Miami's percentage increase was 9.7 percent compared to a 13.4 percent increase for Ohio public universities.
The complete report and listing of salary changes can be accessed at www.miamistudent.net.
