A campus of The California
State University
Office of the Academic
Senate • One Washington Square • San
Jose, California 95192-0024
•408-924-2440 Fax: 408-924-2451
SS-S05-12
At its
meeting of
SENSE-OF-THE-SENATE
RESOLUTION
FACULTY COMPENSATION AND THE CRISIS IN
RECRUITING AND RETAINING FACULTY OF HIGH QUALITY
Whereas, Studies of the
California Post-Secondary Education Commission (CPEC) have indicated that
faculty compensation in the CSU has not kept pace with compensation of
comparable universities;
Whereas, There are a
number of disincentives to recruiting and retaining faculty of high quality,
among them the persistent, long-term failure of CSU faculty salaries to be
adjusted to match the CPEC parity figure; the failure of CSU salaries to keep
pace with the cost-of-living, especially the cost of housing; compression of
the salary scale; and uncertainty regarding the continuation of current
retirement programs; and
Whereas, Many
departments at SJSU are unable to hire faculty because candidates are offered
much higher salaries by other universities (sometimes double the SJSU offer)
with the other offers typically coming from institutions with lower teaching
loads and in cities with a lower cost-of-living than exists in San Jose; and
Whereas, Many faculty
live well outside of the San Jose area in order to find affordable housing
which then makes it more difficult for them to engage in student and campus
activities taking place outside of the timeframe of typical teaching schedules;
therefore be it
Resolved, That
the Senate follow the example of the Academic Senate CSU to endorse the
attached statement on Faculty Compensation
and the Crisis in Recruiting and Retaining Faculty of High Quality (authored and approved by the Academic
Senate CSU), and be it further
Resolved,
That
the Senate join the Academic Senate CSU in calling upon the Chancellor and the
Board of Trustees (AS-2702-05/FA; May 2005):
·
To make faculty compensation one of the most important issues in
budgeting, and to make clear, in all annual budget proposals, the strong and
unwavering support of the Trustees for providing faculty compensation increases
at the full parity figure recommended by CPEC;
·
With the California Faculty Association, to address the issue of
salary compression, and call upon the Chancellor to seek additional budget
support as necessary to accomplish that objective, as has been done in other
states;
·
To announce their strong support for the current faculty pension
system and for the Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP).
and be it finally
Resolved, That the
Senate Chair send this resolution to the Chancellor and the Board of Trustees
along with data on the number of searches and offers for 04/05 and examples of
reasons why some offers were rejected and that the challenges of hiring high
quality faculty continue to be highlighted in the SJSU Academic Senate’s
“critical issues” document used in the Executive Committee’s external relations
activities.
Approved:
Faculty
Compensation and
the Crisis in Recruiting and
Retaining Faculty of High Quality
(Unanimously
endorsed by the Academic Senate of the
In September 2001, the Academic Senate CSU adopted a report
entitled The California State University
at the Beginning of the 21st Century: Meeting the Needs of the People of California. In a section entitled "The Crisis in
Faculty Hiring," that report predicted:
As the CSU confronts . . . burgeoning enrollments and [a] crisis
of space, it will also face a crisis in faculty hiring, due to a combination of
increased enrollments, the demographics of the current faculty, disincentives
to take faculty positions in California in general and in the CSU in
particular, and a failure to hire ahead of the demand curve.
The CSU hires t/tt faculty from a national pool, and therefore
faces serious competition for new faculty members. The CSU faces serious constraints on its
ability to recruit and retain a faculty of high quality during the coming
decade because of
§
the serious and continuing lag of CSU salaries behind those of
comparable institutions;. . .
§
excessive
These circumstances have not improved during the nearly four
years since the report was originally drafted.
The current faculty continue to retire in large
numbers. Enrollments continue to
increase despite budget reductions.
However, both of these constraints on recruiting and retaining a faculty
of high quality have increased.
Faculty
Compensation Patterns Over Twenty Years
For
more than a decade, the legislatively-mandated studies conducted by the
California Postsecondary Education Commission (CPEC) have shown that
compensation for faculty at
In our
2001 report, we noted that the purchasing power of CSU faculty was actually
less than it had been ten years before.
After a brief improvement in the late 1990s, that situation has
worsened, as Graph 2 makes clear. Graph
2 is based on CSU data, which are complete only through the 2002-2003 academic year. Given the lack
of any significant compensation increases in the intervening years, however,
the current situation is unquestionably worse than it was in 2002. We can use CPEC data, for example, to
compare the average faculty salary in 1999-2000 with that in 2004-05. According to CPEC data, the average CSU
faculty salary in 1999-2000 was $66,281.
To maintain the same purchasing power in 2004-05, the average faculty
salary should have increased to $75,113.
In fact, however, CPEC data show that the average faculty salary in
2004-05 was $69,327.[1]
Faculty
Compensation and the Challenge of Hiring Faculty of High Quality
Present compensation, thus, can
be a major disincentive to a successful hire.
In 2003, the Faculty Flow
Committee (made up of individuals from the Academic Senate, the California
Faculty Association, the campus provosts/academic vice-presidents, the CSU
administration, and two consultants, one of whom was a member of the CSU
administration, the other a faculty member) noted in its major findings that
Salary was listed as a reason by
only 12% of faculty who accepted CSU offers but over 20% of the faculty who
rejected CSU offers. For 37% of
respondents who accepted a position with the CSU, the CSU offer was higher than
other offers received. For 55% of respondents who rejected an
offer from the CSU, the CSU offer was lower than other offers received. [emphasis
added]
The report recommended that the
CSU should “Work to increase CSU faculty salaries to a level at which they are
comparable with those offered faculty in peer institutions.”[2]
It is widely recognized that
many CSU faculty members are approaching retirement (see Graph 3), and that the
number of temporary faculty providing instruction in the CSU hovers around the
50% mark.[3] Although declining numbers of tenured faculty
impose an enormous need to hire new faculty members, few incentives exist for a
candidate to put the CSU high on his/her list.
Fundamental impediments are tied to inadequate compensation.
A
second major disincentive is the cost of living, especially in urban
areas. Many candidates are wary of
taking a position in a location where even a rental absorbs a disproportionate
percent of one’s income and where expectations for top salaries or retirement
income are fragile at best. The gross
average salary paid to an assistant professor--somewhat above the usual salary
level for a new hire—in 2003-04 was $54,572; in 2004-05 it increased a total of
$277, to $54,949.[4] The average assistant professor’s salary was
critically inadequate in 2003-04; its inadequacy has been exacerbated by steep
increases in housing prices. Salaries of
associate professors were better matched to the housing market, but still
inadequate in many areas of the state.
Dependence on hiring new faculty at the associate professor level in
order to offer a nationally competitive salary compresses the salary scale for
those currently employed and is unfair to CSU faculty members who have had to
serve as many as seven or eight years to reach similar salary levels. Table 1 summarizes HUD data on income in the
six urban areas with the highest housing prices, and compares those income
designations with CSU salaries.
Table 1. HUD Data on Income Necessary to
Purchase a Home
Compared with CSU
Salary Levels, Selected Urban Areas, 2005
|
PMSA
or MSA[5]/ CSU
Campus |
HUD Income Designations, Family of 3, 2005[6] |
CSU Salary Levels, 2004-05[7] |
||
|
Low Income |
Median Income |
Assistant Professor |
Associate Professor |
|
|
San
Francisco/San Francisco |
$81,450 |
$101,800 |
$54,949 |
$67,093 |
|
San
José/San José |
76,400 |
95,500 |
||
|
|
59,600 |
74,500 |
||
|
Ventura/Channel
|
58,050 |
72,500 |
||
|
Santa
Cruz-Watsonville/ |
56,500 |
70,700 |
||
|
Orange/Fullerton |
55,300 |
69,100 |
||
Imagine
how difficult it is to recruit faculty members to these campuses when federal
data illustrate that entry-level salaries fall below the HUD standard for
"low income."
The
data in Table 1 highlight the disparity in selected geographic areas. The
situation was only slightly better in other parts of the state. In San Diego County (San Diego State
University, CSU San Marcos), the average salary of an assistant professor was
$35,280 lower than the $89,852 income needed to purchase a median-priced home
($406,950) and $6,000 below the HUD median annual wage for the area. In Los Angeles County (CSU Los Angeles, Long
Beach, Northridge, Dominguez Hills), the average CSU assistant professor's
salary was $19,880 lower than the $74,452 needed to purchase a median-priced
home ($337,200), although the salary was approximately equal to the HUD median
annual wage for the area. In San
Bernardino and Riverside counties (CSU San Bernardino, Cal Poly Pomona), the
salary was $7,640 higher than the $46,932 needed to purchase a median-priced
home ($212,560), but was $4,472 lower than the HUD median annual wage. In
Table 2.
Changes in Cost of Median-priced House Compared with Changes in CSU
Average Salaries, 2003-04 to 2004-05
|
Region |
Change in Cost of a
Median-priced House, 2003-04 to 2004-05[8] |
Change in CSU Average
Salaries, 2003-04 to 2004-05[9] |
|
|
Assistant Professor |
Associate Professor |
||
|
|
14% |
0.7% |
-0.4% |
|
|
24% |
||
|
|
24% |
||
|
|
34% |
||
|
|
31% |
||
|
Central Valley Counties |
23-25% |
||
Fair
Market Rental costs were also nearly prohibitive in relation to faculty
salaries at the levels normally utilized for new faculty hires. While the Bay Area market rentals were
reduced 13.3 percent and 15.6 percent for 2 and 3-bedroom apartments between
Faculty
Compensation and the Challenge of Retaining Faculty of High Quality
The
structure of compensation is a third major disincentive, especially for
retention. CPEC notes the complexity of
the factors that attract individuals to an employer such as the CSU: “compensation is only one factor that faculty
use when considering job offers. Other
factors such as pension plans, cost of housing, and quality of life often
affect a faculty member’s decision when accepting a new position in
Compression
of the salary scale is the compensation issue that most affects senior faculty;
it also constrains the hiring of new faculty members and, especially, the
retention of mid-career faculty members.
The need to hire at increasingly high salary levels, without providing
corresponding increases in the salaries of senior faculty members, means that
after years of work a median-level full professor now earns only 1.5 times as
much as a recently hired, median-level assistant professor. This may be compared to the situation in the
CPEC comparison institutions for the CSU, where a median-level full professor
earns 1.7 times as much as a median-level assistant professor. In the UC system, the median-level full professor
also earns 1.7 times as much as a median-level assistant professor.[13]
This
salary compression has several implications.
One has to do with morale among continuing junior faculty members. In many departments across the CSU, newly
hired assistant professors are earning more than assistant professors hired a
few years previously. Because of the
need to be as competitive as possible in hiring, salaries at the assistant
professor rank are only 9.7% behind those at CPEC comparison institutions, and
salaries for associate professors lag by only 7.1% On the other hand, senior faculty
members--full professors--are the most seriously disadvantaged; their
compensation lags 21.4% behind salaries at CPEC comparison institutions. This fact carries clear implications for
retirement, since retirement income is tied directly to the faculty member's
highest salary. Once mid-range faculty members understand the reality and implications
of this salary compression, it increases the likelihood that they will seek
jobs elsewhere. For senior faculty
members who do not leave the CSU, this salary compression means that they are
likely to delay retiring in the hopes of securing a few more annual salary
increases.
Uncertainty about the CSU retirement program
has emerged as a potential, fourth disincentive, again, one that is especially
likely to affect retention. As presently
structured, PERS provides defined retirement benefits for faculty that are
superior to those found in some private universities and in many public systems
in other states. Such benefits may have
enabled the state to hire and retain faculty at lower salaries than would have
otherwise have been the case. In
particular, it has been useful in the past fifteen years when the state has not
maintained the level of compensation recommended by CPEC. The defined benefits of the PERS system have
helped hold mid-career faculty members in the CSU when they compare the
benefits available to them in other institutions. The potential of the Faculty Early Retirement
Program (FERP) has contributed to recruitment success and provided an offset to
the tendency of senior faculty to delay retirement. It has also benefited the CSU in providing
for guaranteed and orderly departures of faculty from the system.
Adverse Effects on
the CSU of Current Patterns of Faculty Compensation
The
potential impact on CSU as a whole, and on the faculty, is not difficult to
predict: a smaller proportion -- and
sometimes even smaller numbers -- of tenured and tenure-track faculty members;
this can be clearly seen in Graphs 4 and 5, which carry the data only through
2002-03 because that is the latest year available in the CSU Statistical
Abstracts. With fewer new assistant
professors and more lecturers, there is likely to be less diversity among
faculty and perhaps a less-qualified faculty.
The faculty is likely to be more mobile, with lessened long-term loyalty
to the institution. Currently employed
junior faculty will be less likely to remain, and those who do are likely to
make it through the ranks only to find that their salaries have in effect been
frozen. While these results have human
consequences, they also have consequences for the institution, for it will be
less able to provide students with a high-quality education, to nourish
academic programs, and to meet the needs of the larger society by educating its
teachers, nurses, engineers, counselors, business and corporate leaders. Thus, this situation will have a profound
effect on the citizens and institutions of the state.
The
disillusionment experienced by long-term faculty in the CSU is now creeping
down the ranks; senior faculty see their salaries dwindle in relation to those
of their peers; junior faculty cannot afford to buy homes or to rear their
children as they would be able to do in other states; their enviable retirement
system is under attack on two fronts (the pension program proposed for change
by the Governor and special interest groups promoting ballot initiatives, and
the FERP program proposed for elimination by the Trustees). Few faculty or staff in the CSU would
recommend a career in the CSU to their children. Junior faculty
members barely get by on their salaries as assistant or associate professors
and they see professors with many years of commitment to the CSU go
unrewarded. In that circumstance,
assistant and associate professors inevitably ask themselves if they can afford
a future of such limited economic opportunity.
Professionals in few other fields -- for that matter, employees in any
other industry -- would not tolerate the conditions now taken as baselines in
CSU.
The
decline in quality will have a ripple effect throughout the state, one from
which it may take decades to recover.
Despite a persistently unhappy budget climate in California, it is
incumbent on those who wear the mantle of leadership in the CSU to speak
openly, decisively, and strongly on behalf of a system now hovering at a
crossroad between excellence and mediocrity.
Recommendations
Regarding Faculty Compensation and Related Issues
·
The Academic Senate CSU calls upon the Chancellor and Board of
Trustees to make faculty compensation one of the most important issues in
budgeting, and to make clear in all annual budget proposals the strong and
unwavering support of the Trustees for providing faculty compensation increases
at the full parity figure recommended by CPEC.
·
The Academic Senate CSU calls upon the Chancellor and Board of
Trustees, and the California Faculty Association, to address the issue of
salary compression, and the Chancellor to seek additional budget support as
necessary to accomplish that objective as has been done in other states.
·
The Academic Senate CSU calls upon the Chancellor and the Board of
Trustees to announce their strong support for the current faculty pension
system and for the Faculty Early Retirement Program.
·
The Academic Senate CSU calls upon the Chancellor and other CSU
representatives to refrain from criticizing the CPEC methodology for
determining the parity figure. The
appropriate time and place for discussions of that methodology is in the
meetings of CPEC's Faculty Salary Adjustment Committee, on which the CSU has
full representation. Criticism of CPEC
methodology in other venues serves only to persuade faculty members that the
Chancellor and Trustees are not supportive of faculty compensation and to
persuade state officials that they need not respect CPEC recommendations.
References:
Academic
Senate of the CSU. The California State University at the
Beginning of the Twenty-first Century:
Meeting the Needs of the People of California, September 2001. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/AcadSen/Records/Reports/CSU_21stCentury.pdf
Advisory
Committee for the CSU and Comparable Faculty Workload Studies.
CSU Faculty Workload Report, February 2002. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/acadres/docs/csu_facwrkldrpt.pdf
Comparable Faculty Workload Report,
January 2003. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/acadres/docs/CFW-Report-10.pdf
Findings and Recommendations of the Advisory Committee for the CSU
and Comparable Faculty Workload Studies, January 2003. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/acadres/docs/FINAL_Findings_Rec.pdf
California
Postsecondary Education Commission. Faculty
Salaries at California's Public Universities, 2005-06. Online
at http://www.cpec.ca.gov/completereports/2005reports/05-04.pdf
California
State University, Faculty Flow Committee.
Report of the Faculty Flow Committee, March 2003. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/AcadSen/Records/Reports/FacultyFlowCmtReport.pdf
Faculty Flow Survey Report,
January 2003. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/AcadSen/Records/Reports/FacultyFlowSurveyReport.pdf
California
State University, ACR 73 Taskforce. Response To ACR 73 (Strom-Martin): A Plan to Increase the Percentage of
Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty in the CSU,
July 2002. Online at http://www.calstate.edu/AcadSen/Records/Reports/ACR73_07222002.pdf
California
State University, Office of the Chancellor.
California State University
Statistical Abstract, 2002-2003.
Online at http://www.calstate.edu/as/stat_abstract/stat0203/pdf/abstract/A_TOCack.pdf
CNN Money. “Top Housing Markets, February
15, 2005,” http://www.money.cnn.com/2005/02/15/real_estate/metromarkets
U.S.
Department of Housing and Urban Development. FY 2005
Income Limits. Online at http://www.huduser.org/Datasets/IL/IL05/ca_fy2005.pdf and http://www.huduser.org/datasets/il/il05/BRIEFING-MATERIALs.pdf