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University of Nebraska-Lincoln
Friday, April 2, 1982
Vol. 109 No. 54
Lincoln, Nebraska
Copyright 1982 Daily Nebraskan
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Photo by D. Eric Kircher
Robert Youngberg, director of the UNL Solar Office, watches a test device that mea
sures solar energy filtering through tree canopies. The information will be used to
make recommendations on the best trees to plant to block and admit solar energy.
Faculty Senate members request
re-examination of salaries report
UNL Faculty Senate members have
asked a federal agency to re-examine a new
report on faculty salaries, the senate presi
dent said Thursday.
Larry Walklin, senate president and
chairman of the broadcasting department,
said he contacted the Bureau of Institu
tional Research to learn how the material
in the annual Higher Education General In
formation Survey was compiled. Senate
members need to know how the material
was compiled in order to compare the re
port's figures with the salary studies pro
duced by the university, he said.
The Higher Education General Informa
tion Survey states that UNL faculty mem
bers received pay increases from 7 to 11
percent during the 1981-82 school year.
According to the report, the average pro
fessor's salary was $33,100, an 8 percent
increase from last year. The average associ
ate professor's salary was $25 ,600, a 9 per
cent increase. The average assistant profes
sor's salary was $22,100, an 11 percent in
crease. The average graduate instructor's
salary was $15,300, an increase of 7 per
cent. An Omaha World-Herald article about
the report, saying that the average UNL
faculty member's salary was $24,000 and
that the university ranked second highest
in faculty salaries among the Big Eight uni
versities, was in error, Walklin said. The re
porter totaled the average figures of the
separate categories in order to obtain that
average faculty salary figure. The reporter
should have figured the salary averages by
taking the total amount paid in faculty sal
aries and dividing it by the number of fac
ulty members, he said.
Low salaries, little morale
could result in faculty loss
By Alice .Hrnicek
With a proposed 2.5 percent faculty sal
ary increase, little money for hiring and
fewer teaching materials for fiscal year
1982-1983, UNL will fall further behind in
the marketplace and spread its resources
more thinly, university officials said.
Larry Walklin, UNL Faculty Senate pre
sident, said the university must draw on its
talent to deal with tight budget conditions.
"If faculty are doing too much, it's like
a huge bowl of soup," Walklin said. "You
put more water in, and it's not as nourish
ing. And if you don't have a bowl to deliv
er it in, it's difficult to serve the soup."
Most college deans claim the soup al
ready is difficult to serve. Unable to raise
faculty salaries to the same level as compe
titors nor to provide significant merit rais
es, the deans fear they could lose faculty
members who would be costly to replace.
In an April 1981 report, the most re
cent one by the UNL Faculty Salary Study
Committee, UNL ranked ninth in the
1980-81 salary level out of 10 land grant
universities. The universities are members
of the 50-member Association of American
Universities, half of which are public and
half of which are private universities.
UNL's average salary was $26,390 a
year compared to the group's average of
$28,865. When fringe benefits were added
to salaries in the comparison, UNL ranked
last.
The nine AAU institutions used are the
University of Illinois, Iowa State Universi
ty, Michigan State University, the Univer
sity of Minnesota, the University of Mis
souri, Ohio State University, Pennsylvania
State University, Purdue University and the
University of Wisconsin.
This year's committee report will be fin
ished by the end of April, said Harry Al
len, UNL director of Institutional Research
and Planning and a committee member.
When setting guidelines for 1982-83 fac
ulty salary raises, the NU Board of Regents
is expected to recommend primarily merit
increases as it has for the past six years,
said Randy Haack, NU budget director.
The guidelines, which deans are not
strictly bound by when deciding salary rais
es, may be issued at the April 17 regents
meeting if the Nebraska Legislature has
voted on state employee increases and the
NU budget appropriation, Haack said.
The upcoming year's increase promises
to be much smaller than the 1981-82 aver
age faculty salary increase of 9 percent.
By asking that his originally suggested 5
percent increase in state employee salaries
be put off until January, six months after
the start of the fiscal year, Gov. Charles
Thone has pared his original request to 2.5
percent, a state budget office source said.
But the Legislature's Appropriations
Committee recommends starting the 5 per
cent increase in October to make the actual
increase 3.75 percent for the year, the
source said.
In addition, the appropriations commit
tee proposes to allot $300,000 to bring fac
ulty salaries up to market rates in the Col
lege of Business Administration and the
College of Engineering and Technology,
John Strong, interim vice chancellor for
Academic Affairs said.
For the engineering college, the special
funds are essential to raise salaries from
$2,000 below the national average of 287
engineering schools, Dean Stanley liberty
said.
To attract assistant professors, the col
lege must offer a $29,000 starting salary,
compared to its $23,000 average of cur
rently employed assistant professors, Li
berty said.
This year, the college filled only seven
of 15 vacant positions because of budget
constraints, he said.
Salaries in the business college have
been "traditionally behind" other schools,
Dean Gary Schwendiman said. The college
is unable to fill about five of 65 positions
because salaries are not competitive, he
said.
New faculty members are hired for
about $25,000 a year and some professors
make $40,000, Schwendiman said. The
UNL College of Law, which has the highest
UNL salaries, ranging from $28,000 to
$52,000, ranks 1 18 out of 167 law schools,
acting Dean Donald Shaneyfelt said.
A reputation of having low salaries may
be having an adverse effect on the college's
search for a new dean, Shaneyfelt said.
He said he had hoped the Legislature
would award $120,000 in special funds to
bring the faculty range up to the national
average. Special funds were requested for
the Law College, but those funds are not in
the approprations committee budget bill.
Salaries in the College of Arts and Sci
ences are about 15 percent below the AAU
average, Dean G.G. Meisels said.
The college, which teaches about half of
all credit hours at UNL, has a salary range
of $16,000 to almost $40,000, varying by
rank and department. Chemistry, computer
science, geology and other sciences are dif
ficult areas to fill, Meisels said.
At all teaching levels in the College of
Home Economics, salaries are about
$1,000 below the average of 89 institu
tions, Dean Hazel Anthony said. Salaries
range from $15,000 to $36,000, she said.
Finding quality people at affordable pri
ces also poses a problem for Neal Copple,
dean of the School of Journalism. With a
salary range from $19,000 to $37,000, the
college faces "terribly tough" competition,
he said.
The journalism college at the University
of Kansas, one of the college's main com
petitors, has 12 more faculty members
than UNL's college, even though both have
about 800 students, Copple said.
If the college had money to hire six
more faculty members it could offer more
sections of required courses and electives,
and ease the burden on its staff members,
he said.
Journalism faculty members have an
average of 18.3 hours of contact with stu
dents per week, Virginia Corgan, acting as
sistant to the vice chancellor for Academic
Affairs said. That is the second highest
average at UNL, which has an average of
10.1 contact hours per faculty member.
Faced with awarding lower than average
salaries, deans wonder whether the pro
posed 2.5 percent merit increase will ap
pease faculty members.
Continued on Page 2
Task force votes for Uni Place redevelopment
The Community Development Task
Force voted Thursday to transfer funds
from the University Place Loan Program to
a facade program aimed at improving the
appearances of small businesses in the
area.
The program will limit the restorations
to improvements that are considered real
estate, not personal property.
Improvements covered by the program
will include surface restoration, painting,
remodeling and repair and graphics or
signs.
None of the grants will exceed $1,999.
This is because of federal guidelines which
specify that the wage rates for federally
funded projects will be higher than aver
age community wage if the cost of the
project is $2,000 or more.
James Cook, president of the University
Place Community Organization, urged the
Task Force to approve the transfer of
funds.
"What we're basically trying to do is
restore these buildings to the way they
once were," said Cook.
The Task Force also mandated that
guidelines be approved by the Urban De
velopment Department and the Univer
sity Plaee Community Oranization.
They directed that a provision be in
cluded allowing funds to be returned to the
program if the maintenance agreement is
not kept.
The Task Force also approved the
Urban Development's guidelines for Neigh,
borhood Involvement funds.
The total budget for 1982-83 will be
$13,000, the same as this year. However,
there will be only $8,500 allocated in 82
83 for organizational development funds.
In the current fiscal year, $9,000 was allocated.