Author: webmaster

NEXT MEETING: April 25, 3:30-4:30, ZSR Library 476 (note room change)

Agenda:

1. Approval of Minutes of March 2018 meeting (Steve Boyd)
   1. Update on Salary Campaign
      1. Meeting with VP Milam; Announcement by Pres. Hatch (Senate/College) re. salaries AY 2019-2020 & 2020-2021 (Steve Boyd)
      1. Report on WFU and Comparison Universities’ Salaries and Benefits (Jane Albrecht)
      1. Identification of Peer Institutions (Senate Compensation: Steve Boyd)
   1.  Non-Tenured Full-Time Faculty: Issues and Plans (Ryan Shirey & Tanisha Ramachandran)
   1. End of Year Gathering (Sarah Hogan)
   1. New Business

Towards Fair Salaries for All Faculty

In 1966, the AAUP, the Association of Governing Boards and the American Council on Education jointly formulated a statement on shared governance, which recognizes that “the faculty should actively participate in the determination of policies and procedures governing salary increases.”

In accordance with that statement and the principle of shared governance, we wrote to President Hatch, Board of Trustees Chair Roach, Provost Kersh and Vice President Milam to follow up on the motions passed in the March 16, 2018 Faculty Senate Meeting (by a strong majority) and the April 9, 2018 College Faculty Meeting (by a vote of 131-2-2) to raise faculty salaries at all ranks, but especially among the ranks of Associate and Assistant Professors and Teaching Professors. The motion states, “BE IT RESOLVED: The Administration and Trustees raise faculty salaries at all ranks to the mean of the nine traditional cross-admit institutions by 2021 and raise salaries for non-tenure track faculty at a similar percentage rate as Assistant Professors.”

Our voice has been heard.  President Hatch announced in the Senate meeting on March 27, 2019 that there will be a significant increase in the salary pool next year and the year after.  We hope that the two-year commitment will take us to where we need to be.

WFU AAUP will continue to monitor salaries, seek increases in the pool and the equitable allocation of salaries among the faculty. 

Join WFU AAUP.  There is strength in numbers and in knowing the facts and figures.  You will find the latest average faculty salary and comparison salary tables on the website, wfuaaup.org, under Salary Issues (“2017-18 and 2018-19 Average Faculty Salaries, all Ranks, Reynolda Campus and College Only, with Instructor Breakout” and “2017-18 and 2018-19 Comparison of WFU and Nine Cross-admit Faculty Salaries and Benefits“). 

Food for Thought

In 2018, the WFU Faculty Senate passed a resolution that the President of the Senate be added as a permanent member of the Gift Acceptance Committee (GAC). Also in 2018, the Faculty Senate charged a sub-committee to “review the existing COIC (conflict of interest and commitment) policy for the Reynolda Campus, including the constitution and responsibilities of a COIC committee, make any necessary changes, and approve the policy by May 2019” (Senate Minutes, April 18, 2018).

The new gift acceptance policy was approved by the Faculty Senate on March 27, 2019. It strengthens faculty governance and the decision-making processes of the GAC and fully adheres to AAUP guidelines on academy-industry alliances, the American Council on Education, the Association of Governing Boards’ statement on governance of colleges and universities, SACSCOC accreditation standards, and follows best practices of peer universities such as Cornell University’s faculty document on Best Practices Concerning Strategic Corporate Alliances. An excerpt:

For any gift over $50,000 and when any member of the GAC (including the Senate president) raises a concern about academic freedom and responsibility … the GAC shall refer to CAFR [Committee on Academic Freedom and Responsibility] all such donor agreements. The subcommittee will review and submit its analysis to GAC and the Faculty Senate Executive Committee for any gift proposal that impacts curricular and research domains…. If a gift seems closer to a grant, the Gift Acceptance Committee will refer it to the Office of Research and Sponsored Programs as per university standard operating procedures.

CAFR chair Ulrike Wiethaus has invited publication of the approved gift acceptance policy on the website, wfuaaup.org, where you soon will find it under “Faculty Governance.”

Mission and Goals:

WFU AAUP embraces the mission of the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) which advances academic freedom and shared governance; defines fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; promotes the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education,  helps the higher-education community organize to make our goals a reality; and, advocates for higher education’s contribution to the common good.

Join the National AAUP and support its work:

https://www.aaup.org/membership/join

NEXT MEETING: February 28, 3:30-4:30, Tribble A108

Agenda:

1. Approval of minutes of November, 2018 meeting.
2. Celebrations.
3. Update on WFU and College non-TT faculty salaries.
4. Taking stock of WFU AAUP: where are we on the survey results, salaries, governance, and solidarity across ranks? Where do we go from here? 
5. New Business.

Towards Fair Salaries for All Faculty

WFU AAUP is following up on the motions passed in the College Faculty and Senate last year to raise faculty salaries at all ranks, but especially among the ranks of Associate, Assistant and Teaching Professors.

Faculty Members at WFU largely perceive that they are being underpaid, and the data bear that out.

In 2017-18, the mean of Professors’ salaries at the nine traditional cross-admit institutions is $165,700. WFU’s (Reynolda Campus) Professor salary is $151,700. The mean of the cross-admits’ Associate Professor salaries is $113,200; $101,900 at WFU. The mean of the cross-admits’ Assistant Professor salaries is $93,800; $76,200 at WFU;^[1]

According to the Office of Institutional Research, in the College and Graduate School of A&S only, the number of “Instructors,” a category that includes Teaching Professionals, Professors of the Practice and Visiting Faculty, grew from 115 in 2017-18 to 136 in 2018-19.  The mean Instructor salary was $62,195 in 2017-18 and $61,128 in 2018-19.  The mean salary of the 95 faculty who continued in their position in both years was $63,603 in 2017-18 and $65,621 in 2018-19, an increase of 3.20%.  The inflation rate from July 2017 to July 2018 was 2.95%, virtually negating any salary increase for those continuing faculty.

The WFU AAUP Faculty Financial Situation and Morale Survey, which polled 556 College faculty members (392 of whom responded, a 71% response rate), revealed that two out of three survey respondents teach Summer School out of economic need. Student debt levels among incoming faculty — especially Teaching Professors and Assistant Professors — have increased substantially in recent years. Nearly 60% found that their monthly pay increases lagged behind their monthly repayment obligations.

According to the data in WFU Salary Growth Relative to Tuition Increases, a table available at wfuaaup.org, from 2002-2018 the cumulative percentage difference between increases in the faculty salary pool and increases in undergraduate tuition and fees is 23.3%. If salary increases had tracked tuition increases, salaries would be 23.3% higher than they are now.

Join WFU AAUP in seeking a commitment from the administration to raise the salary pool significantly and allocate it equitably among the faculty.  There is strength in numbers.

Food for Thought

Academic Freedom and the Scope of Protections for Extramural Speech (excerpt)

by Keith E. Whittington, Princeton University

It is important that colleges and universities act to protect the rights of faculty members to speak out about matters of public concern even when their views are controversial, but we need a better explanation of why that should be so. No doubt professors sometimes behave irresponsibly in public or voice ill-considered, mistaken, or even disgusting opinions. Nonetheless, institutions of higher education would be worse off if they regularly sought to censor such speech by members of the faculty. It is no easy task to explain to skeptical students, parents, alumni, and donors why that might be true, however. Certainly, it is not obvious why the vital interest of the university in fostering high-quality teaching and scholarship is enhanced when professors get into heated political arguments with members of the general public on social media. I believe that colleges and universities need to protect such speech not because it is central to academic freedom as such but because failing to protect the right of faculty members to say controversial things in public will tend to undermine the freedom for scholarship and teaching that we most value. An institution’s brand should take account of the fact that colleges and universities are places where people voice controversial ideas, where competing ideas are welcome, and where ideas can be fearlessly debated, defended, and rejected. Read the full article in Academe (Winter 2019)

Mission and Goals:

WFU AAUP embraces the mission of the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) which advances academic freedom and shared governance; defines fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; promotes the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education,  helps the higher-education community organize to make our goals a reality; and, advocates for higher education’s contribution to the common good.

Join the National AAUP

The national office has a long history of assisting the WFU-AAUP, especially on matters of tenure and promotion.  Please support the work of the AAUP by joining now at: https://www.aaup.org/membership/join

---

[1] Sources: American Association of University Professors, Faculty Compensation Survey (Mar.-Apr. 2018); Office of Institutional Research.  The nine comparison institutions are: Davidson, Duke, Emory, Richmond, UNC-CH, UVA, Vanderbilt, Washington and Lee, and William and Mary.

NEXT MEETING: January 28, 3:30-4:30, Tribble A108

FORUM ON FACULTY SALARIES WITH PROVOST KERSH: January 30,  4:00-5:00, Library Auditorium (Room 404)

Mission and Goals:

WFU AAUP embraces the mission of the national American Association of University Professors (AAUP) which advances academic freedom and shared governance; defines fundamental professional values and standards for higher education; promotes the economic security of faculty, academic professionals, graduate students, post‐doctoral fellows, and all those engaged in teaching and research in higher education,  helps the higher-education community organize to make our goals a reality; advocates for higher education’s contribution to the common good.

WFU AAUP’s particular goals this year are:  to follow up on the motions passed in the College Faculty and Senate last year to raise faculty salaries at all ranks, but especially among the ranks of Associate, Assistant and Teaching Professors; to provide information about processes of contract renewal, tenure and promotion; and to publicize the AAUP’s guidelines and principles concerning shared faculty governance.  

WFU AAUP MEETING MINUTES – November 26, 2018 [DRAFT]

TRIBBLE A108

• Interest sign-up sheet circulated for University Budget Priorities Committee and Governance Committee.
• Collection of $10 annual dues, to be used toward maintain the website.

UDATE ON FACULTY SALARIES:

Exec. Comm. Report on meeting with Provost Kersh:

• Goals for the meeting: to facilitate communication between Provost and faculty, to discuss status of Senate and College motions on salaries that passed in Spring 2018, to set a forum date for discussion with Provost in Spring 2019, and to learn more about how and when the budget is determined.
  • The Exec Comm discussed the central differences between the Provost’s and AAUP’s data on raises over the last few years.  The Provost shared a  chart indicating a marginal cost of living increase for faculty, but only because these numbers combined faculty at all ranks.  The AAUP consequently provided data to the Provost to show that Assistant and Associate Professor salaries have failed to keep pace with inflation.  The Provost was receptive to this information.
  • Faculty are seeking a commitment to raise the salary pool and allocate a larger portion of it to junior faculty.
  • Provost Kersh indicated that a new peer group is not necessary at the moment but would be useful in the future. The Senate Compensation committee is working on generating this.
  • Because the Provost’s office is not doing so, the AAUP intends to run a survey about faculty student debt load in the next week or two.  This information will be anonymous and will be passed along to the Provost.
• Faculty in attendance discussed how there is also need for more data on teaching professional salaries.  The AAUP plans to collect this in the spring, now that we have comparative data available to us.
• AAUP faculty also discussed the need to separate merit and cost of living increases. Senate discussion on this is ongoing.
• Chairs are also now discussing merit evals and raises with Dean Gillespie.
• Present faculty also discussed how we might — rhetorically — make a better case for faculty raises. Our argument for salary increases should be about ethics, but mainly our excellence and value to the University.
• In the coming semester, the AAUP will organize a faculty forum with Provost Kersh on salaries. This might be scheduled during a Wednesday Senate meeting.

DISCUSSION ON FACULTY SOLIDARITY ACROSS RANKS:

• In 2019, the AAUP also plans to work toward better protecting Academic Freedom for WFU’s teaching professionals.  There was discussion about the need to revise the handbook to clarify that non-TT faculty are also protected. The Senate’s Academic Freedom and Responsibility Committee may make this motion in the spring. The AAUP also intends to organize ATP focus groups so as to involve greater participation from faculty at this rank in this effort.

News from the National AAUP:

Universities have become increasingly corporatized, and the significant expansion of university administration has seriously eroded faculty authority to control or make effective recommendations about university policy.

Institutional changes over the past few decades have led to increased top-down management of the university by the growing ranks of administrators, as well as the rapid expansion of non-tenure track faculty positions [see the most recent data in the chart, below]. The result has been a system wherein rather than relying on faculty expertise, growing ranks of administrators increasingly make unilateral decisions on university policies and programs, often influenced by considerations of external market forces and revenue generation.

How does WFU, an R2 school, stack up? 

No.       Type                         Percent of Total

330      Tenured                      (43%)

  84      Tenure track              (11%)

165       Non-tenure track      (21%)

197       Part-time      (25%)

    0       Graduate Employees (0%)

776     Total Individual Reynolda Campus Faculty

(Fall 2017. Sources: 2017-18 Factbook; Provost Rogan Kersh; Institutional Research)

Join the National AAUP

The national office has a long history of assisting the WFU-AAUP, especially on matters of tenure and promotion.  Please support the work of the AAUP by joining now at: https://www.aaup.org/membership/join

Upcoming Meeting: Thursday, October 25, 2018, 3:30-4:30
Room: Tribble A108

Agenda:

1. Approval of minutes of last meeting (see attachment).
2. Follow-up on Faculty Salaries.
3. Discussion of Faculty Workload: Lower-Division Advising.
4. New Business.

Read More

Urgent: The WFU AAUP Faculty Salary Report and a motion to increase salaries are on the agenda of the April 9 college faculty meeting. Please be there to ask questions and vote on the motion (below), which was passed unanimously by the Faculty Senate on March 21, 2018.

Next AAUP Meeting:
Thursday, April 5, 2018, 3:30-4:30
Room: Tribble A108

Agenda:

1. Approval of minutes of last meeting (see attachment).
2. Discussion of Motion to Increase Faculty Salaries.
3. Discussion of Evaluation of Administrators.
4. New Business.

Read More