UA chancellor touts salaries, says annual raises for faculty will be priority

FILE — Old Main is framed by students and trees Tuesday, March 3, 2012 on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville.
FILE — Old Main is framed by students and trees Tuesday, March 3, 2012 on the University of Arkansas campus in Fayetteville.

FAYETTEVILLE -- Increases to faculty salaries have been a priority for the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, said Chancellor Joe Steinmetz, with full professors on average earning $128,947 in the 12-month period that ended June 30.

The average of 333 salaries was 1 percent less than salaries at 12 similar public universities, where full professors on average earned $130,272, according to UA data.

In fiscal 2016, the UA average salary for full professors of $121,589 was 3.5 percent below the average at the 12 UA-identified peer public universities, which include the University of Alabama and the University of Kansas, according to UA data.

"I think we've made progress on these salaries. We have made it a priority," Steinmetz told UA's faculty senate Wednesday.

In May 2016, UA faculty passed a resolution calling for their pay to be a priority after lagging behind pay increases for administrators.

Full-time faculty yearly raises, on average, were 4.4 percent in fiscal 2018, according to UA data for 1,112 full-time faculty, while raises for mid-tier administrators -- a group that includes vice provosts and associate vice chancellors -- were 3.1 percent.

Deans on average saw pay increases of 4.2 percent and top administrators on average saw raises of 2.2 percent. The headcount for UA administrators increased to 40 from 37 a year earlier, according to data presented by Steinmetz with headcounts for the positions of chancellor, provost, vice chancellor, associate vice chancellor, vice provost, associate vice provost and dean.

He said he informed administrators that "they were not to give raises that were higher than the faculty received," adding that, "going forward, that's always going to be the policy that we have."

Data presented by Steinmetz showed associate professors and assistant professors earn more, on average, than their counterparts at similar public universities in other states.

UA instructors and lecturers earn less, with their average pay of $54,705 in fiscal 2018 below the $55,447 on average paid at the peer schools. The UA average was calculated for 367 instructors and lecturers.

Earlier this month in an annual address to the UA community, Steinmetz spoke about the current fiscal year, stating that the university received about $8.2 million in new permanent funding and also reallocated approximately $5 million from administrative cuts.

Out of this total, Steinmetz said 44 percent, or $5.8 million, went to support faculty and staff "primarily in the form of our annual salary increases."

Steinmetz said in his speech that "investing in faculty and staff excellence isn't just lip service, it's where the bulk of our new and reallocated dollars went, as it was the last year before."

He said the university's top financial officer, Chris McCoy, has been told to identify any areas where administrative costs can be cut. Steinmetz pledged that "for every two dollars we identify in cost savings, we'll return one dollar to student support and one dollar to faculty support," later clarifying that staff would be included to receive support from identified cost savings.

Published average salary data for nine universities in Arkansas shows UA full professor salaries are greater by tens of thousands of dollars, on average, than at other schools in the state, based on the 2017-18 American Association of University Professors Faculty Compensation Survey. Inside Higher Ed, an online news source, published the data.

The average salary data did not include, however, some large research universities, such as the University of Arkansas at Little Rock and Arkansas State University. UA is the only school in the state classified as being a doctoral university with "highest research activity," according to the Carnegie Classifications system.

At the low end in salaries among these nine Arkansas schools was Ouachita Baptist University, which in 2017-18 had 39 full professors earning an average salary of $63,800. Besides UA, none of the other eight schools had an average salary for full professors of more than $91,000, which was the average salary for 17 full professors at Southern Arkansas University.

Metro on 10/15/2018

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