University Times

Average salaries of Pittsburgh campus full professors ($105,600), associate professors ($70,200), assistant professors ($61,600) and faculty librarians ($54,300) all have gained ground since last year compared with salaries at other Association of American Universities (AAU) schools.
For salaries at all three professorial levels, Pitt now ranks above the median among the 34 public universities in the United States that belong to the AAU, 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, including Carnegie Mellon and the Ivy League schools.
Based on an analysis by Pitt’s Office of Institutional Research of data published in the March-April issue of Academe, the journal of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP), Pitt ranks 13th among the 34 public AAU schools for the average salary paid to full professors (up from 15th place last year and 19th the year before that), 16th for associate professors’ average salary (up from 17th place last year and 21st two years ago) and 13th for assistant professors’ average pay (up from 14th last year and 19th two years ago).
Pitt librarians’ salaries – which for years had ranked near the bottom among AAU schools that belong to the Association of Research Librarians (ARL) – also moved up in rank.
Among the 34 public AAU/ARL schools, the average salary of a faculty librarian in Pitt’s University Library System (ULS) ranks 22nd, up from 24th place last year and 30th two years ago. ULS is one of several Pitt units (others have included the regional campuses and the schools of business, engineering and law) that have received additional, centrally allocated salary money in recent years from Provost James V. Maher to boost average pay and help those units hire and retain high-quality faculty.

Pitt faculty salaries rank considerably lower when measured against salaries of all 60 U.S. private as well as public AAU universities surveyed – although Pitt did move up in rank in all three professorial categories among the full U.S. AAU membership: from 36th place to 35th for full professors, from 43rd to 40th for associate professors, from 39th to 37th for assistant professors. Among the 57 AAU/ARL private and public schools, the average pay of a Pitt librarian improved in rank from 43rd to 40th place.
The AAUP data revealed that the average percentage raise among continuing, full-time Pitt faculty last year (4.2 percent) exceeded the national average not only among public colleges and universities (2.6 percent) but private ones (4 percent), too.
– Bruce Steele