Hike May Aid Salary Inversion

At the Jan. 24 UNC-CH Board of Trustees meeting, Chancellor James Moeser said he was concerned that heightened competition for recruiting and retaining faculty has created a situation where new professors often earn more than veteran faculty members with comparable merit.

At the meeting, the BOT recommended a one-year, $400 tuition increase, part of the revenue from which would be used to increase faculty salaries in the College of Arts and Sciences. The proposal will go before the UNC-system Board of Governors on March 6.

Provost Robert Shelton said money generated by a tuition increase would be distributed to individual departments based on each department's needs.

Shelton said each department chairman typically then allocates the money to the faculty members that are determined to be the most qualified based on their teaching, research and service records.

But several department chairmen said they would like to use part of the money to correct a salary divide between long-standing members of the faculty and recent hires.

Peter Ornstein, chairman of the Department of Psychology, said he typically sets aside 10 to 15 percent of money allocated for salary increases to adjust the salaries of returning faculty members who are earning less than their more recently hired peers within the department.

"Because the market for new faculty is so competitive, a professor will often receive less than another professor who's just been hired, even if the two have comparable ratings in teaching, research and service," Ornstein said. "Equal ratings don't always mean equal dollars."

James Thompson, chairman of the Department of English, said a 1996 campuswide study of the phenomenon, known as salary inversion, concluded that for each year a faculty member remained at UNC, that professor's salary fell about $2,800 behind his or her peers who switched universities.

Lynn Williford, director of institutional research, said a more recent survey has not been done because issues of faculty salary equity are now being tracked by individual departments.

Thompson said he would use some revenue from the tuition increase to reduce salary inversions because this inequity hurts faculty members who have made a long-term contribution.

He said salary inversions have been a problem at UNC-CH since the 1980s, when a faculty committee was established to look at the issue of inequity.

Political science Professor Stephen Leonard, a former chairman of the now-disbanded committee, said the group recommended that each department use part of its salary-increase money to reduce salary inversions.

But he said many departments have not followed the recommendation because it takes away money that could be used to attract and retain distinguished professors. "If the University wants to be able to keep their best people here, they have to deal with inequity," Leonard said. "If they want to get top-dollar faculty, they can just give out merit increases, but it's hard to do both."

Leonard said that after the 1996 study, more than 100 faculty members were given salary increases from a fund targeted at correcting salary inversions.

But Faculty Council Chairwoman Sue Estroff said despite past efforts to reduce the practice, salary inversions still present a problem for faculty. "It's like remodeling your house," she said. "Some things you have to keep fixing."

The University Editor can be reached at udesk@unc.edu.