University Times

The University Senate budget policies committee is recommending a new, smaller peer group for benchmarking faculty salaries at Pitt’s Bradford, Greensburg and Johnstown regional campuses.

At its Oct. 28 meeting, BPC endorsed a plan to base the annual salary comparison on a peer group made up of public and private not-for-profit baccalaureate schools, excluding those with primary profession focus, in Pennsylvania and the neighboring states of Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York (minus the metro New York City area), Ohio, West Virginia and Virginia.

That logic would yield a group of a little more than 100 schools, a smaller, more geographically compact group deemed more appropriate for comparing schools with which the regionals compete for faculty.

Executive Vice Provost David DeJong, chancellor’s liaison to BPC, agreed to present the recommendation to the provost.

The current peer group, in use since 2010, is made up of schools in the three AAUP regions bordering Pennsylvania. Viewed by critics as too large and too diverse, it encompasses more than 200 schools, including some as far away as Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, and includes private-independent, church-related and proprietary schools in addition to public institutions.

Senate President Frank Wilson and BPC chair Beverly Gaddy, both Greensburg campus faculty members, expressed their desire for a more appropriate regional peer group a year ago. (See Oct. 1, 2015, University Times.)

The group that’s being recommended sprang from several options presented at BPC’s Sept. 23 meeting. Those choices were developed by a Senate subcommittee, in conjunction with the Office of the Provost.

In his report to Faculty Assembly earlier this week, Wilson said the recommendation could be presented for the Assembly’s endorsement in December.

In other business:

BPC’s next meeting is set for 2:30 p.m. Dec. 9 in 156 Cathedral of Learning.

An updated Office of Institutional Research analysis of salary increases for continuing faculty is expected to be among the agenda items.

—Kimberly K. Barlow