University Times

Average salaries of Pittsburgh campus full-time faculty haven't gained or lost much ground since last year, compared with salaries at other Association of American Universities (AAU) schools.

Salaries of full, associate and assistant professors in Oakland continue to rank in the bottom third among 59 private and public AAU universities in the United States, and in the middle third among this country's 32 public AAU institutions.

The AAU is a group of prominent North American research universities that includes public schools such as Pitt and the state systems of California and New York, as well as Ivy League schools and other private universities, including Carnegie Mellon and the University of Pennsylvania.

Two Canadian AAU institutions were excluded from the annual salary survey compiled by the American Association of University Professors and published recently in the organization's journal, Academe.

According to Academe, the average salary of a Pittsburgh campus full professor during the 2000-2001 academic year ($90,900) ranks 43rd among the 59 AAU universities surveyed, up from 44th place last year.

The average salary of a Pittsburgh campus associate professor ($63,600) ranks 42nd, the same as last year.

For assistant professors (average salary: $53,100), the Pittsburgh campus ranks 45th, down from 44th place in 1999-2000.

Pitt's administration and University Senate groups agreed during the 1980s that Pitt should aim to raise faculty salaries here to the AAU median for each faculty rank. But in recent years, the administration has argued that Pitt should benchmark its salaries against those of public AAU schools only.

They maintain — and Senate leaders have come to acknowledge — 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.

In fact, the disparity of wealth between elite private universities and public institutions is growing. In recent years, only a handful of public schools have made the AAU's top 20 for salaries in any professorial rank.

For the third consecutive year, Harvard is paying the highest average salary for full professors ($135,200), Stanford ranks No. 1 for average salaries of associate professors ($88,100) and the California Institute of Technology is paying the highest average salary to assistant professors ($73,400).

Comparing Pittsburgh campus salaries with those at the 32 public AAU universities only, Pitt ranks 19th in average salary for full professors (up from 20th last year), 18th for associate professors (up from 19th place) and 21st for assistant professors (down from 20th place).

Philip K. Wion, chairperson of the University Senate budget policies committee, announced the salary data at the committee's May 25 meeting.

Pitt's Office of Institutional Research is expected soon to release a more comprehensive report on Pitt/AAU salaries. That report, produced annually by Institutional Research, will include a comparison of faculty salaries at Pitt regional campuses with those at other AAU branch campuses, as well as a survey of Pitt faculty librarians' pay compared with salaries at other Association of Research Libraries institutions.

Institutional Research has cited what it calls a number of problems inherent in the data published in Academe, including:

* Academe reports on faculty salaries for a nine-month academic year. As a result, average salaries of universities with a large proportion of faculty on 12-month contracts can be misrepresented.

* Faculty members' ages and tenure status are not taken into account. Universities with proportionately more senior and tenured faculty tend to pay higher salaries.

* The Academe data don't account for discipline areas. Schools that emphasize technical and high-demand fields such as business and engineering generally pay higher salaries than liberal arts schools.

— Bruce Steele