Faculty Caucus Minutes

November 8, 2006

(Approved)

Call to Order

The Senate Chairperson called the Caucus to order immediately following the Senate meeting.

Approval of Faculty Caucus Minutes of October 11, 2006

Motion: By Senator Cutbirth, seconded by Senator Riegle, to approve the Faculty Caucus Minutes of October 11, 2006. The minutes were unanimously approved.

10.23.06.01 Salary Enhancement Program (Provost Presley)

Senator Crothers: You have before you a memo from the Provost regarding the Salary Enhancement Program. This is the second year of the program.

Provost Presley: The memo is asking for Faculty Caucus endorsement of the second year of the Salary Enhancement Program in order to complete it; that does not imply that the second year will complete this because we don’t believe that it will. We believe the second mid-year project will reward unrecognized or under-recognized, long-term merit because of low or absent salary increases for some time. We believe that it will also move the university’s salary structure to parity with peer group medians and it will address selected structural equities, including salary compression and inversion. The figures that you have in front of you about the Salary Enhancement Program’s effect last year, moving from 14.1 to 11% below median and moving from 10.3 to 8% below the median, are, in fact, the most pessimistic projections of the effect that you might have. I have other projections that are more recent than this that indicate, if they are true, the mid-year project last year moved us much closer to those medians. But you have to understand that when we are doing this kind of work, we are sort of guessing at what other institutions have done.

What we are asking for is, essentially, the same endorsement for the same methodology that we used last year. Institutional Research and Planning will provide data to the deans and DFSCs will be asked to perform their usual role of indicating merit among the associate and full professors. The CFSCs and the deans will do their usual methodology of mapping those recommendations onto a spread sheet that indicates the available dollars and also the degree to which, in a particular discipline, associates and fulls are below medians for the nation.

Senator Mallory: Can you give me a few examples of the benchmark institutions that we are measuring ourselves against?

Provost Presley: It depends on which benchmark you are talking about. There is a set of benchmark institutions that have been identified by the IBHE. There is a set of benchmark institutions that has been identified in Educating Illinois. When we talk about the benchmarks here, I believe that this salary study is based on the reported salaries of other research-intensive institutions across the country and CUPA data, the College and University Personnel Association.

Senator Mallory: Has there every been consideration for benchmarking in private or governmental industries in terms of what people with those specialty areas would garner in terms of salary if they were working outside of academia.

Provost Presley: No, that seems rather less relevant to full and associate professors than it might be to assistant professors and, there, only to the degree that starting salaries across the country reflect marketability to other employers.

Senator Crothers: When a version of this notion was discussed on the Planning and Finance Committee, we were complaining that we were being compared at that time to the IBHE comparator schools and, there, for the most part, it was almost embarrassing in some cases. So we asked why aren’t be compared to our aspirational institutions. The answer that came back is that we are already terribly far behind the comparator schools from the IBHE; let’s try to get there first and then we can worry the aspirational schools.

Senator Mallory: In the College of Nursing, it did seem like last year the medians that we were being compared to were putting us at over the median and were not necessarily organizations that we consider to be our competitors. There was some concern voiced among the faculty that we were not compared to the proper institutions, which could have affected whether or not we were eligible for the mid-year raise.

Senator Crothers: Again, as the Provost has pointed out, most assistant professors are close to the peer group averages. That typically reflects their competitiveness in the national and international markets. The comparative marker for junior and senior faculty is not private industry; it is, in fact, faculty at other institutions where you have the other goods of institutions.

Provost Presley: There are 63 research-intensives in the U.S. and 57 of them provide CUPA data, so we are looking at as broad a sample of institutions like us as possible. I would like to point out that comments like Senator Mallory’s are taken seriously. Milner Library is also another area where the comparative salaries look relatively low, so those two deans have had some very specific conversations with people in Institutional Planning, as will all the deans, because looking at the data for some departments and for some disciplines, we will have reactions like that. There is constant tweaking of this analysis because we are paying attention to remarks like that and trying to find ways for dealing with it.

Senator op de Beeck: What exactly are the statistics for assistant professors, especially for someone who has been here for several years?

Provost Presley: Average salaries for professors lag average salaries at comparator institutions in all departments except three. Average salaries for associate professors lag average salaries at comparator institutions in all departments except six. Average salaries for assistant professors were at or above the average salaries at comparator institutions in all departments except 12. There is a range there. There is one department in which the average salary for assistant professor is 92% of the median and in the others, it ranges from 97 to 99% inside that group of 12. In the rest of the departments, the salaries are anywhere from 105 to 118% above the average for assistant professors. This year, we are breaking the data up so that we are pulling out brand new assistant professors and assistant professors who have spent some time at the institution. It doesn’t seem to make that much difference in the calculations.

Senator Crothers: I think Senator op de Beeck’s concern was salary compression within the assistant professor ranks where new hires may come in at or above the salary that someone came in a few years previously at. Would not this mid-year pay raise ease the pressure on salary compression issues at the senior ranks for the actual ASPT cycle, which, hypothetically, might free up a few dollars for the ASPT process in May? I don’t know if that is true or not.

Senator Kalter: Are we being compared in terms of real dollars or do they adjust the dollars for our cost of living?

Provost Presley: Real dollars; they are not adjusted for cost of living.

Senator Kalter: You have here in your letter that we are somewhere between 11.6% and 8% below median. Do you find that some departments are much lower than others and is there any pattern to that?

Provost Presley: Yes, there are patterns. There is one department that is remarkably lower than the average. Some of the compression issues are in or have been in the College of Business. In fact, last year’s mid-year increase did a great deal to erase that. Some patterns are so brittle that they can be fixed with one application of this. Then in others, they are so far below the median that I can’t imagine them moving up with only this mechanism in ten years.

Senator Fazel: How does the amount of money available compare to last year?

Provost Presley: We have not yet decided how much money would be available. There is an amount that is within the budget and I might be presuming too much if I told you that precise amount. The plan is to make the amount pretty much identical to last year’s.

Senator Fazel: Is your plan to divide the money among the colleges based on the number of associates and full professors or will it be based on how far they are from the median?

Provost Presley: It will be the latter approach.

Senator Van der Laan: It looks like for full professors, the available amount would be less than 3% and for associates it would be less than 2%. If I understand this correctly, it means that once it is divided up in departments across the university, it will be an absolute pittance.

Provost Presley: You are incorrect. I reported to the Caucus recently that if you only went by averages, it might be a pittance, but it is not done by averages, it is done by merit. The available dollars are made available proportionate to the amount below the median. Some of the raises were 11%.

Senator Horvath: I was wondering about what you just said about merit. When my DFSC did this last time, we decided that the most equitable way to do it was just an across the board raise.

Provost Presley: There were some DFSCs that did not follow directions.

Senator Horvath: So, you are directing the DFSCs to use merit to distribute this?

Senator Crothers: As in last year’s process.

Provost Presley: Yes.

Senator Horvath: You know that some departments did not do it.

Provost Presley: The reason why I did not say, ‘you must do this’ is that we tried to let the departments, schools and colleges follow their usual culture. That is why there is the vague statement in the policy about the dean and CFSC mapping these recommendations on to that graph. I think that, in the main, many more people receive these raises and that is fine; and I think that, in the main, they were distributed by merit and that’s fine. But individual deans sat down with me and fixed compression issues, for example. I don’t want this to be a straight jacket in anyway.

Senator Crothers: Two things that are important to note here are, one, before we get too lost in the technical details here, this is the university choosing, as it has named as its highest priority for the second year in a row, to add additional money into the system for salaries. It is a benefit, not a harm.

Senator Borg: Is there a reason that the information that you are asked to map this against is not given to the SFSCs and DFSCs and remains at the CFSC level?

Provost Presley: We really wanted DFSCs to do what they usually do, which is focus on merit. The information is very specific and I think I only gave it to the deans and they only shared it with the CFSCs as they found necessary. It’s pretty confidential information.

Motion: Per Senator Crothers, the motion to approve the Salary Enhancement Program for the mid-year raises was moved by the Faculty Caucus Executive Committee. The Caucus unanimously approved the program.

Confirmation of Faculty Appointments to Council for Teacher Education

The following nominees were appointed by the Provost and unanimously confirmed by the Faculty Caucus to serve on the Council for Teacher Education:

Amy Coffman, COE, 2006-09

Barb Nourie, COE, 2006-09

Sharon McCrone, CAS, 2006-07

Wayne Beckner, CFA, 2006-07

Glenn Bailey, COB, 2006-09

Educating Illinois Steering Committee Faculty Election

There were no volunteers to serve on the Educating Illinois Steering Committee who would be on the Senate next year to provide continuity.

Student Center Advisory Board Faculty Election

The following nominees were unanimously elected by the Caucus to serve on the Student Center Advisory Board:

Gary Hunter, Marketing, 2006-07

Phyllis McCluskey Titus, EAF, 2006-07

Student Center Performing Arts Series Board Faculty Election

The following nominees were unanimously elected by the Caucus to serve on the Student Center Performing Arts Series Board:

Steve Goodwin, 2006-07

Michelle Vought, 2006-08

Janessa Williams, 2006-09

Vice President for University Advancement Search Committee - Election of Faculty Nominees

The following faculty members, nominated by the colleges, were elected by the Caucus as candidates to serve on the Vice President for University Advancement Search Committee. Only two of the four will be selected by the President to actually serve on the search committee.

Susan Kalter, CAS

Jill Attaway, COB

Ron Strickland, CAS

Joseph Armstrong, CAS

Adjournment