University Times

Average salaries of Pittsburgh campus professors and faculty librarians have lost ground since last year, compared with the median of salaries at other American Association of Universities (AAU) schools.

The decline was hardly unexpected, considering that the only Pitt employees to receive pay raises this year were those earning $35,000 or less. Their raises ranged from $540 to $348.

According to a report released last week by Pitt's Office of Institutional Research, the average salary of a full professor at the Pittsburgh campus this year ($76,800) ranks 33rd among 58 AAU institutions in the United States — down from 29th place last year.

The average salary of a Pittsburgh campus associate professor ($53,700) dropped by six places, from 27th to 33rd.

For assistant professors (average salary: $42,900), the Pittsburgh campus ranks 50th, down from 33rd place last year.

Average salaries of Pittsburgh campus librarians ($37,800) slipped from 46th to 47th place among the 53 AAU schools that belong to the Association of Research Libraries (ARL).

Among the 18 AAU branch campuses that do not offer graduate degrees, Pitt's Bradford campus ranks seventh for salaries of full professors (Bradford average: $50,300), 11th for associate professors ($42,500) and 12th for assistant professors ($35,000).

The Greensburg campus ranks 6th for salaries of full professors (Greensburg average: $51,100), 15th for associate professors ($41,300) and 17th for assistant professors ($32,200).

The Johnstown campus ranks 2nd for salaries of full professors (Johnstown average: $56,900), 10th for associate professors ($42,900) and 16th for assistant professors ($33,200).

Among the four AAU campuses that confer at least 75 percent of their degrees below the bachelor's level, the Titusville campus ranks last in average salaries for associate professors (Titusville average: $34,900) and assistant professors ($30,700). Because Titusville employs fewer than five full professors, salary information for that rank was not reported.

The Pitt report does not list last year's rankings for the regional campuses.

The report is called "Average Salaries of Faculty and Librarians, A Peer Group Analysis, 1995-96" (Pitt Information Document 205). It is based on data published by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in the March/April issue of Academe and in the 1995-96 Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Salary Survey.

In the report, Pitt's Office of Institutional Research points out several problems with the data used in the comparison:

* The AAUP reported on faculty salaries for a nine-month academic year. Data from institutions such as Pitt that enroll relatively high proportions of faculty on 12-month contracts can be seriously misrepresented. "The ratio one uses to convert a 12-month salary to a nine month equivalent may vary among institutions and one can debate the rationale for converting the salaries at all," the report states.

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

* The data don't account for faculty members' discipline areas. Schools that emphasize technical fields such as engineering and high-demand fields such as business tend to pay higher salaries than liberal arts schools. "This point particularly brings into question the appropriateness of comparing public institutions to private institutions," the report states.

"While the public university has a responsibility to teach a broad spectrum of topics, thereby limiting the ability to specialize heavily, private institutions are not so bound. In addition, private schools often lack the limits placed on public institutions in terms of compliance with state and federal governance rules and also reliance on public funds.

"As a result, the majority of AAU institutions ranked highly are private institutions." Limiting the comparisons to the 30 public AAU schools, Pitt would rank 10th in average salary for full professors (down from 7th place last year among public AAU schools), 10th for associate professors (down from 7th place), and 26th for assistant professors (down from 12th place).

Among public ARL schools, Pitt would rank 28th out of 30 institutions in librarians' average salaries (down from 26th out of 29 last year).

— Bruce Steele