raises?

[ciao_yall]

I'm at a state institution. In good years, we get cost of living adjustments of 1 to 2.5%. There are no merit raises, and promotion comes with 8% and 10% bumps. I have only heard of one case in my college where someone received a counteroffer. Usually the dean wishes people good luck in their new job. Salary inversion is a big problem here but, since forming our own governing board, we can no longer access faculty and staff salary information online.

We are not receiving COLA for this year (again), and are required to teach at least an additional 3 credit hours without overload pay. Between those issues, the increased health insurance premiums, jumps in parking fees (which my university treats as a tax to every employee, regardless of whether or not you ever park your car on campus), and inflation, I am making less money than I did when I was hired.

I'm grateful to have a job right now, but am realizing that it is financially irresponsible of me to stay in academia for the rest of my career.

How is your pension plan? That is what is keeping me here - tradeoff is lower salary now but a comfortable defined-benefit retirement... assuming our system doesn't go bankrupt but that's another conversation.

[clean]

I'm at a state institution. In good years, we get cost of living adjustments of 1 to 2.5%. There are no merit raises, and promotion comes with 8% and 10% bumps. I have only heard of one case in my college where someone received a counteroffer. Usually the dean wishes people good luck in their new job. Salary inversion is a big problem here but, since forming our own governing board, we can no longer access faculty and staff salary information online.

We are not receiving COLA for this year (again), and are required to teach at least an additional 3 credit hours without overload pay. Between those issues, the increased health insurance premiums, jumps in parking fees (which my university treats as a tax to every employee, regardless of whether or not you ever park your car on campus), and inflation, I am making less money than I did when I was hired.

I'm grateful to have a job right now, but am realizing that it is financially irresponsible of me to stay in academia for the rest of my career.

First, I am surprised that salaries are not available online through the primary state newspaper.  In many states, one can access the state salary information by university (or police department, etc). 
Second, IF YOU really want the information, then a Freedom of Information Request should work.  I know that a few faculty here have done it because of some grievance or salary request they were contemplating (if the newspaper's information was out of date).

Third, painting ALL of academia as a bad employer is probably correct, but everywhere is not THERE. IF your dean does not negotiate when outside offers are made, then Get One and LEAVE THAT PLACE!  You are not particularly happy there (at least in the tone of the response).
IF you are unwilling to move, THEN you  have other issues, and need to maximize your 'hourly wage' by whatever means ethically necessary.

The advice then, worth twice what you paid for it, is to Get Publishing and find the next, better job.

One of my dissertation committee noted that "it doesnt matter what tenure requirements are.  It matters what the market says. IF you are marketable, then tenure and salary are never a problem"

[Ruralguy]

A  number of SLACs will not respond to outside offers as a matter of *policy*, not whim of the Dean. That doesn't necessarily make  it great policy, but for reasons I mentioned earlier, its probably sound policy at a small school with limited budget, at least beyond some reasonable point (a few thousand dollars?). Not to mention the fact that it jacks up a lot of searches! Related to this, and I think Eigen might be at one of these schools, a number of SLACs and other institutions in the regions of these SLACs have agreed to keep all entering profs at more or less the same salary with no negotiation.

[dismalist]

... a number of SLACs and other institutions in the regions of these SLACs have agreed to keep all entering profs at more or less the same salary with no negotiation.

'Twould be illegal under the Sherman Act in the US of A and the Competition Act in Canada. This is collusion, ya' know. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission would come after such guys if told and convinced.

[clean]

a number of SLACs and other institutions in the regions of these SLACs have agreed to keep all entering profs at more or less the same salary with no negotiation.

All the more reason to only put your plants in pots (dont let your roots go too deep). 
The primary defense against these sorts of places is to be Willing AND Able to move.
Able to move means keeping up with what the market believes a good hire would be.
Willing to move involves renting, not owning (or buying a bargain that you can recoup with little effort**), and not getting tied down to another that is unwilling to leave (like someone that can not be too far from their family).




**  My first house was purchased from a coworker that was moving and didnt do what was necessary to get the house ready to put on the market. He then made an offer on another house without a contingency or the money for the full downpayment.  I offered him a fair price and he took it. It was no less than he would have taken home from a sale with a broker, but it was probably below the market price (IF he had fixed the deferred maintenance issues.... I spent the full summer getting the house back to where it should be, and sold it when I moved 3 years later for a reasonable price with little effort.)  In the meantime, to the people on campus who cared about faculty 'putting down roots and showing a commitment to wanting to be here with us', it showed what they wanted. 

[clean]

Quote from: Ruralguy on Today at 01:29:23 PM
... a number of SLACs and other institutions in the regions of these SLACs have agreed to keep all entering profs at more or less the same salary with no negotiation.

'Twould be illegal under the Sherman Act in the US of A and the Competition Act in Canada. This is collusion, ya' know. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission would come after such guys if told and convinced.

Assuming that these are state institutions, I dont know that the Sherman Act covers.

Second, in my experience, especially at state SLAC's, the admin could care less about what is legal, or even ethical!  The state will pay the lawyers.  Even IF the school loses, the state, not the institution will pay for the loss.  IF I were King, one of the things I would change in academia would be to allow people to sue adminicritters personally!  Make the institution pay the fines and restitution, not the state.  I would also strip away the state attorney's primary tactic - :Delay!!  Delay!! Delay!!.  IF the state attorneys ask for a delay, fine, but let them know that the awards will go up 20% (compounded per delay!). 

Justice Delayed is Justice Denied, and in my experience with the system attorneys, they dont ever want to make a decision, and they then want to litigate everything, but take their time doing it.  (It is certainly more 'fun' to litigate! )

But I ramble.

[darkstarrynight]

We have annual merit review in my department with a complex rating system to determine the percentage of merit pay one would get from some mystery pot of money that does not exist. No surprise then that despite doing this annually, no one has ever received a merit raise from the department because there is no merit fund. Ha!

In my six years here, we had one COLA raise at 1.5% last year. Otherwise, no other raise was ever discussed or expected. Our institution is well aware that we have the lowest salaries for faculty among our peer institution list. The faculty senate has brought it up many times to no avail.

I received an unexpected raise after two years on the TT from my Dean, considered a "retention raise" at 3%. I just got a glimpse of my contract which shows a 20% raise for my promotion, much higher than I anticipated.

[dismalist]

Quote from: Ruralguy on Today at 01:29:23 PM
... a number of SLACs and other institutions in the regions of these SLACs have agreed to keep all entering profs at more or less the same salary with no negotiation.

'Twould be illegal under the Sherman Act in the US of A and the Competition Act in Canada. This is collusion, ya' know. In the US, the Federal Trade Commission would come after such guys if told and convinced.

Assuming that these are state institutions, I dont know that the Sherman Act covers.

Sure does!

[Ruralguy]

You took me too literally, but it's my fault. To my knowledge, these institutions have very similar practices. I have no proof they colluded and it's beside the point anyway.

[rabbitandfox23]

I'm at a state institution. In good years, we get cost of living adjustments of 1 to 2.5%. There are no merit raises, and promotion comes with 8% and 10% bumps. I have only heard of one case in my college where someone received a counteroffer. Usually the dean wishes people good luck in their new job. Salary inversion is a big problem here but, since forming our own governing board, we can no longer access faculty and staff salary information online.

We are not receiving COLA for this year (again), and are required to teach at least an additional 3 credit hours without overload pay. Between those issues, the increased health insurance premiums, jumps in parking fees (which my university treats as a tax to every employee, regardless of whether or not you ever park your car on campus), and inflation, I am making less money than I did when I was hired.

I'm grateful to have a job right now, but am realizing that it is financially irresponsible of me to stay in academia for the rest of my career.

That's exactly how I feel - it's all very demoralizing. And same here with the parking situation... I have to pay $7 each time I park in the University lot where I teach! It's ridiculous.

[eigen]

You took me too literally, but it's my fault. To my knowledge, these institutions have very similar practices. I have no proof they colluded and it's beside the point anyway.

My experience has been that it's market pressure rather than collusion. Our institution works hard to make sure that we're keeping our salaries competitive with peers, and they do the same. If any "peer" institution in the region bumps salaries, everyone else follows in short order.

Similarly, in my experience, it puts people on even ground across disciplines, which I think is important- despite the fact that I'm in a discipline where I'd be on the higher end of pay scales at another institution.

It helps collegial and peer relationships immensely when there isn't a bitterness that someone else is getting paid 20% more for doing pretty much the same work just because they're in a more "marketable" discipline. Just like it helps remove tension when you know that no one else was getting hired at a higher starting salary just because they negotiated harder. This latter especially since people from more precarious backgrounds are less able to negotiate hard- they need the job to support themselves and their families.

Anyway, it's why I picked an institution with this type of salary structure- but the same is true for all of my colleagues, since the salary structure we have is a direct output of strong faculty governance.

[rabbitandfox23]

We have annual merit review in my department with a complex rating system to determine the percentage of merit pay one would get from some mystery pot of money that does not exist. No surprise then that despite doing this annually, no one has ever received a merit raise from the department because there is no merit fund. Ha!

In my six years here, we had one COLA raise at 1.5% last year. Otherwise, no other raise was ever discussed or expected. Our institution is well aware that we have the lowest salaries for faculty among our peer institution list. The faculty senate has brought it up many times to no avail.

I received an unexpected raise after two years on the TT from my Dean, considered a "retention raise" at 3%. I just got a glimpse of my contract which shows a 20% raise for my promotion, much higher than I anticipated.

20% - not bad!  Do you know why there is no merit fund in your dept even though the system is set up for one? Does the Dean (or whoever distributes this money) have a reason to not contribute merit-based increases to your dept?

[darkstarrynight]

We have annual merit review in my department with a complex rating system to determine the percentage of merit pay one would get from some mystery pot of money that does not exist. No surprise then that despite doing this annually, no one has ever received a merit raise from the department because there is no merit fund. Ha!

In my six years here, we had one COLA raise at 1.5% last year. Otherwise, no other raise was ever discussed or expected. Our institution is well aware that we have the lowest salaries for faculty among our peer institution list. The faculty senate has brought it up many times to no avail.

I received an unexpected raise after two years on the TT from my Dean, considered a "retention raise" at 3%. I just got a glimpse of my contract which shows a 20% raise for my promotion, much higher than I anticipated.

20% - not bad!  Do you know why there is no merit fund in your dept even though the system is set up for one? Does the Dean (or whoever distributes this money) have a reason to not contribute merit-based increases to your dept?

To be honest, I have no idea. However, these annual reviews are required for us when we go through the mid-tenure review and tenure and promotion review processes. So even though I do not get money through departmental merit, I at least know where I stand. Our annual "merit" review is a 360 evaluation, so everyone reviews everyone (except the department head, who finalizes our annual review from these ratings). That means TT faculty, tenured faculty, and teaching faculty all review each other's accomplishments. We provide our annual goals, materials for teaching/research/service, and our "load percentages" since it seems that no faculty member shares the same % load for teaching, research, and service. We are supposed to weigh their accomplishments based on individual requirements (or for teaching faculty, n/a on research), but I doubt people really do that. It does help that when I wrote my p&t statements to refer to how I may have gone from "met expectations" to "exceeded expectations" for a category to show growth. The bylaws for our department though have a three-year average calculation for each score which creates a multiplier to calculate merit review from the merit fund that does not seemingly exist, with exceptions for faculty here less than three years. Maybe I will find out about this mystery merit pool since we have a new department head and she may be more transparent.

[apl68]

In our town civic pay increases over the past 15 years have been driven mainly by increases in state minimum wage. 

I got a salary boost of about ten cents an hour when I completed my MLS, which entitled our institution to receive an $18,000 a year MLS grant from the state.

[Morgendorffer]

Private SLAC: I have received ~4-6% each year, including this one.