How Are PSU Faculty Doing?
AAUP released its annual report on faculty salaries last week. Every year, I look through the listings to see just how far PSU faculty have fallen behind. This report has no rosier news--we're still at the very bottom for Ph.D.-granting public universities, trailing even in-state (and low-performing) Oregon and Oregon State. And these are data from 2008--before the economic crisis and 12.4% unemployment hit Oregon.
I will have more analysis throughout the course of the week, but I thought it would be useful to see the numbers, with some pretty little graphs, first. AAUP assembles these figures for teaching faculty only--researchers and academic professionals are not represented here. Yet while the entire membership isn't represented, we can see how faculty are doing--and perhaps make some larger judgments about Portland State University's priorities.
AAUP breaks out salaries by category--professor, associate professor, assistant professor, and instructor--and then gives an average of all faculty. As you can see in the graph below, Portland State faculty do uniformly bad at every level. Our faculty are in the bottom quintile in each case (finer-grained categories are not available beyond quintiles). Click on the graph to enlarge it:
The breakdown in salaries, with the first number representing PSU averages and the second representing national averages, is:
Keep in mind that this disparity is between PSU faculty and the average of American faculty at public, Ph.D.-granting universities.
I'll have more later this week--
Update. Gary Brodowicz was doing some calculations of these data himself, and he forwards along a graph with total compensation (includes benefits and salary). It is much like my first graph above:
I will have more analysis throughout the course of the week, but I thought it would be useful to see the numbers, with some pretty little graphs, first. AAUP assembles these figures for teaching faculty only--researchers and academic professionals are not represented here. Yet while the entire membership isn't represented, we can see how faculty are doing--and perhaps make some larger judgments about Portland State University's priorities.
AAUP breaks out salaries by category--professor, associate professor, assistant professor, and instructor--and then gives an average of all faculty. As you can see in the graph below, Portland State faculty do uniformly bad at every level. Our faculty are in the bottom quintile in each case (finer-grained categories are not available beyond quintiles). Click on the graph to enlarge it:
The breakdown in salaries, with the first number representing PSU averages and the second representing national averages, is:
Professor: $88,700, $115,500If the span between those two numbers seems to gape, it's not just your eyes playing tricks. Here's the PSU salary of each category as a precentage of the average:
Associate Prof: $67,800, $80,000
Assistant Prof: $55,700, $68,000
Instructor: $39,800, $45,500
All Professors: $66,600, $84,900
Keep in mind that this disparity is between PSU faculty and the average of American faculty at public, Ph.D.-granting universities.
I'll have more later this week--
Update. Gary Brodowicz was doing some calculations of these data himself, and he forwards along a graph with total compensation (includes benefits and salary). It is much like my first graph above:
Labels: salary equity
posted by Jeff Alworth at
1:42 PM
5 Comments:
no surprises but good information. Someone should do a breakdown and comparisons of the salaries of the bargaining teams for the administration and for the faculty and I suspect the disparities will be even greater
Question: why are Academic Professionals absent from any of this data?
Anon. It's because the AAUP data cover only teaching faculty. It doesn't include research faculty or academic professionals. This is just one data point.
Jeff: I guess my question goes a bit deeper than your answer. WHY is there NO data for AP's and any other non-teaching faculty? Are we only important when the union needs our vote?
Anon, I can't speak for the national organization who put together these data. (I can imagine a number of totally benign reasons why they issue reports only on teaching faculty.) The numbers don't include research faculty, either--and that's where I fit into the union.
However, I can definitely assure you that PSU/AAUP is very concerned with APs and research staff. Our bargaining team has members of both, and we have issues on the table this year for each element of our membership.
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