University Times

Average salaries of Pittsburgh campus associate professors gained ground while the salaries of professors and assistant professors remained steady since last year when compared to the salaries of other faculty at public Association of American Universities (AAU). The University’s faculty librarians lost ground to their AAU peers.

Pitt faculty salaries, excluding faculty librarians, continue to rank above the median salaries of faculty at the 34 public AAU universities. The AAU is a group of prominent North American research universities that includes public institutions such as Pitt, Penn State and the state systems of California and New York, as well as private universities such as Carnegie Mellon and the Ivy League schools.

According to the report, changes in the average salary rankings of Pitt faculty compared to last year among the 34 public AAU schools are:

• Average salaries of Pittsburgh campus associate professors ($74,000) moved up four notches from 16th place to 12th.

• The average salaries of full professors ($109,800) and assistant professors ($63,600) both were ranked 13th among public AAU schools, the same as last year.

• Efforts have been made in recent years at Pitt to boost librarian faculty salaries (rankings rose from 30th in FY 2002 to 22nd in FY 2004). But this year, Pitt’s average faculty librarian salary ($56,000) dropped four notches in the rankings from 22nd place to 26th. The rankings of University faculty librarian salaries were compared to public AAU peers that belong to the Association of Research Librarians.

The salary information was compiled by Pitt’s Office of Institutional Research from data in the March/April issue of Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors, and was presented to the University Senate budget policies committee (BPC) last week. (See related story on AAU faculty salary rankings for Pitt’s regional campuses.)

BPC chair Stephen Carr characterized the report as good news: “The University has made noticeable and important progress in improving its comparative position.” But there’s still cause for worry, he added. “We are competing for faculty with both public and private institutions. And there’s still the long-term issue of where we should be relative to the AAU public peer group.”

Phil Wion, BPC member, said that the University’s advancement in AAU public faculty salary rankings was the result of good judgment, policy and management.

Pitt’s average salary rankings within public AAU institutions moved up by at least four places in each faculty rank over the last four fiscal years (FY 2002 to FY 2005): Full professor salaries rose six places from 19th to 13th; associate professors salaries moved up nine places from 21st to 12th; assistant professors salaries rose six places from 19th to 13th, and salaries for librarians went up four places from 30th to 26th.

The report on AAU faculty salaries ranked average faculty salaries from public and private AAU academic institutions from fiscal year 2003-04 to FY 2004-05.

Pitt’s administration as well as faculty committees have focused on salary comparisons of the University with AAU public schools rather than private institutions. They maintain that the private universities’ huge endowments, high tuition, specialized curricula and freedom from state government regulation enable them to pay higher salaries than public AAU schools.

When compared to all AAU schools in the United States, both private and public, Pitt’s faculty salaries ranked below the median. Rankings didn’t change from last year for salaries of full professors and assistant professors, staying steady at 35th and 37th, respectively, when ranked among the 60 U.S. public and private AAU schools. And reflecting the trends found in the public AAU comparisons, rankings for associate professor salaries at Pitt moved up from 40th place to 35th place compared to all AAU schools in the United States. Librarians lost three places in the overall rankings, going from 40th to 43rd place.

—Mary Ann Thomas