Image provided by: University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries, Lincoln, NE
About The daily Nebraskan. ([Lincoln, Neb.) 1901-current | View Entire Issue (March 29, 1978)
daily nebraskan Wednesday, march 29, 1978 page 10 Salaries emphasis is forced by fiscal conservatism The NU Board of Regents this year is changing its budgeting emphasis from programs to faculty salary increases. The regents have power to determine how the money is distributed within NU after the Nebraska Legislature appropriates a lump sum. This power was defined in a recent court decision between the two. The Legislature never haw awarded as much as the regents requested, according to Ned Hedges, interim vice chancellor for academic affairs. New programs this year, are taking a back seat to faculty salaries on the regents' budget, he said. Fiscal conservatism is a probable explanation for UNL's salary levels, he said. "The taxpayer must recognize the uni versity as being the largest tax-user in the state. Faculty salaries cannot be compared with any other state employee salaries," he said. The regents are putting salary increases first this year because they are concerned about losing good faculty members to other schools with higher salaries, accord ing to professor James Lake, faculty senate president. Lake said UNL is not competitive in salaries. Without competitive salaries, few good professors will come to UNL, he said. Faculty salaries at UNL are compared with universities of similar size. Study groups have based comparisons on nine vice president of administration, "but all we have done is keep pace. We need to do more. Starting out behind most of the in stitutions in our AAU comparison group, we need to catch up before we can offer competitive salaries." Efforts to bring salaries up to a Associate of American Universities (AAU) land grant colleges. The AAU average salary increase for 1976-77 is 6.3 percent, while UNL had a 5.97 percent increase, according to a report by the faculty salary study committee. "UNL has made salary increases," according to William Erskine, executive comparative level is like "shooting at a moving target" said Larry Andrews, assist ant to vice chancellor Hedges. Comparative schools raise salaries just as UNL begins to catch up. As a result, pro gress appears limited. The salary increases need to be higher than cost of living in creases, he said. The reeents will adopt a salarv noli calling for an across-the-board salary in crease for all instructors whose perfor mance has been satisfactory. This money is given to the college dean to help bring the salaries of that college to a comparable level with the same college of other universities, the report stated. This money is distributed from a parity merit fund. Along with the money given to the dean to raise the parity level, money also is given to various faculty members for merit, according to the report. These meritorious professors receive a salary increase in addition to the across-the-board increase, Lake said. He added that although that theoretical ly is the way money should be distributed, college deans decide how the combined money for parity and merit is divided. A much smaller fund, the chancellors discretionary fund, also rewards meritori ous professors and specific areas of need, Lake said. Merit increases are decided on the basis of the amount of research done and in structor evaluations done by students. UNL professor salaries mired in Big Eight basement By Amy Lenzen UNL faculty salaries are among the low est of Big Eight institutions, and finding solutions to raise them to parity level is not an easy task, according to members of the UNL faculty salary study committee. According to statistics compiled by the committee, UNL is seventh in a composite ranking of full professor, associate profes sor, assistant professor and instructor salaries. The University of Colorado has the highest ranking, followed by the University of Kansas, Kansas State University, Okla homa State University, University of Missouri, Iowa State University, UNL and the University of Oklahoma. Nebraska ranks seventh, fifth, sixth and sixth, respectively, in salaries for profes sors, associate professors, assistant pro fessors and instructors. The parity salary the salary that is the committee's goal-is computed by averaging the salaries of seven colleges within nine different universities across the United States, said Prof. Donald Haack, faculty representative and chairman of the salary study committee. A parity ranking is the average of all faculty salaries in a particular college for all universities except UNL. The colleges used are agriculture, architecture, arts and sci ences, business administration, engineering and technology, home economics and teachers. The parity level for this year is being computed. The universities in the comparison are land grant universities which also are members of the Association of American Universities (AAU). Land grant universities were selected be cause they are about the size of UNL and have a similar emphasis on agriculture and engineering. Members of the AAU were selected because the association has a standard system to compare salaries. Universities included in the average are Illinois, Iowa State, Michigan State, Uni versity of Missouri, Ohio State, Penn sylvania State, Purdue, Wisconsin at Madi son and UNL. Any way the salaries are compared, "there has been a lag here (UNL) for a long time," according to Harry Allen, UNL 18 m oo N 00 r CM, CM. " cm" CM CM C I 1 8 2 (o J 1 I i 2 w o 2 Est 0 C R 1 II ? O -p 1 Administrators: pay raises are top priority By Todd Hegert Both the NU Board of Regents and UNL administrators view the question of increasing faculty salaries as a top priority issue. "The University's first priority for 1978-1979 is indeed faculty salaries," said Ronald Roskens, NU president. Salaries rank top priority because compared to other Big 8 schools, UNL faculty salaries are not at competitive levels, Roskens said. The negative side of the faculty salary issue is that salary increases can only be made at the expense of other programs. But regents interviewed agreed that while there can be no additional funding for new programs, there will be no cut-backs of existing programs. Roy Young, UNL chancellor, said UNL faculty salary levels have dropped 18 per cent below the average salary level of 19 universities as compared to UNL in a report by the university salary study com mittee. Both Roskens and Regent Kermit Hansen of Omaha, agree that unless faculty salaries are raised to competitive levels, UNL will have trouble attracting and keep ing good instructors. "It is obvious that if UNL isn't competi tive with salaries, there will be erosion," Roskens said. "Erosion of attraction will make it difficult to attract new, high quality personnel, and erosion of retention will make it difficult to keep the high quality personnel we already have." The regents have proposed a nine per cent salary increase to bring UNL faculty salaries to a comparative level with Big Eight schools, Hansen said. Roskens said that the proposed nine percent increase will not make faculty salaries competitive immediately because other schools also are increasing salaries. "Without doubt we will have to con tinue attention to salary increases over the next few years," Roskens said. Regent Ed Schwartzkopf of Lincoln, said UNL cannot raise salaries to a competitive level within a year. He said salary increases must be granted gradually over the next few years. UNL, slow to increase salaries in the past, must make a greater effort than other universities to raise salaries in coming years, he said. Regent Robert Simmons of Scottsbluff, said teaching innovations must go hand-in-hand with increased salaries. "I'd like to see the faculty better paid for their services," Simmons said. "But I'd also like to see the faculty increase its productivity by changing teaching methods so that there is a higher pupil per teaching ratio. I believe they can do this in most classes. The faculty must realize its obliga tions," Simmons said. "Instructors are cutting themselves off from future salary increases by using the same teaching methods over and over when innovative new methods are needed," he said. Schwartzkopf said he believes increased salaries will improve the quality of in struction at UNL "The state Legislature said that if salary increases are important enough to us," Schwartzkopf said, "the university must make sacrifices in other areas. But I can't see cutting back on existing programs." director of Institutional Research and Plan ning and Administration, a representative to the committee. "It is not going to be possible to quickly recoup the deterioration of faculty salaries that has occurred over the past ten years," Haack said. The reason for the great disparity be tween universities is simply one of money, Allen said. "I don't think low salaries are a funct ion of anything except low budgets," he said. The best solution would be an increased state general fund budget, which is appropriated by the Nebraska Legislature, Haack said. But the chances of that are low, Allen said. Allen said that to increase UNL salaries to the average of the top three Big Eight schools (assuming their faculties get a six percent increase), UNL full professors would need an 11.8 percent increase, associate professors a 9.1 percent increase and assistant professors a 9.6 percent in crease. However, the Legislature is expected to approve only a 6.5 percent increase, Allen said. The Legislature probably will not make larger appropriations because university appropriations as a percentage of the total state general fund have decreased. UNL appropriations have decreased from 15.9 percent in 1970-71 to 11.2 percent in 1977-78. Although the Legislature is unwilling to appropriate more funds, Haack said, solut ions suggested by them are equally unacceptable. The governor and some state senators have suggested that UNL make up the difference from a cash surplus, he said. Haack said he doubts that any such surplus exists because all money has been earmarked for other things. Even if a surplus existed and could be used this year, it probably would not be available next year, he said. UNL needs a source of funds that can be called on year after year, Haack said. It also has been suggested that the tuition rate be raised to increase the budget to the level of other universities, Haack said. However, an "unseen budget factor" is that Nebraska has the lowest percentage of students paying out-of-state tuition of all Big Eight schools, Allen said. If tuition rates are the same, out-of-state students at the University of Color ado contributed about $8 million more to their budget than is available at UNL. Colo rado has approximately the same number of students as Nebraska.