Loyola is currently seeking methods to diagnose and fix salary inequities among faculty and staff.
In a Sept. 24 e-mail to faculty and staff the Rev. Kevin Wildes, S.J., university president, said the University Budget Committee will be asked to develop a financial plan to address any inequities found by investigations within the Provost’s Council, the Standing Committee of Academic Planning and the individual colleges.
An ad hoc subcommittee of SCAP, the University Strategic Faculty Salary System, has found that annual faculty raise pools have not kept up with national inflation in three of the last five academic years. In the last five years combined the Consumer Price Index has grown 18.1 percent while the faculty raise pool has risen 12.6 percent. The report said that for some newer faculty increases in health care insurance alone have equaled their annual raises.
Salary compression occurs when the salary structure does not account for years of service or professional maturity, resulting in first-year employees with earnings proportionately higher than those on staff for several years.
In the report from the SCAP subcommittee found in the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences, “the longer an assistant professor has been at Loyola, the lower her or his salary is.” In the college staff salaries have actually become inverted to result in first-year faculty with larger or equal salaries than those hired up to five year’s before.
Compression is often unavoidable, especially when a university or firm is trying to make departmental changes or recruit a particular faculty type. To compete with market pricings an institution is inclined to offer high salaries to new employees while former employees pays remain stagnant.
Recently, three highly regarded members of the College of Humanities and Natural Sciences, Maureen Shuh from biology, Andy Knight from chemistry and Steve Scariano from mathematics decided to resign, leaving tenured positions at Loyola for higher pay elsewhere.
“Such a loss in one year is unprecedented in my 20 years here,” chemistry professor Lynne Koplitz, a member of SCAP’s subcommittee, said.
Vice Provost George Capowich has begun studies to verify if compression is a university-wide issue.
Steve Heath can be reached at [email protected].
