College professors in Tennessee and Georgia, saddled with record-high student demand and growing pressure from lawmakers to jump-start failing graduation rates, say salary increases must be a top priority this year.
Faculty in both states continue to have some of the lowest pay in the country, a national study says. At some schools, professors say they have gone almost a decade without a meaningful bump in their base salary, leading some valued faculty to flee Georgia and Tennessee systems for other states.
"Faculty are terribly concerned because we have been through such a long winter," said Victoria Steinberg, faculty Senate president at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga and a professor of French. "I am 50 years old. I should probably earn more than I did when I was 39. Our buying power has gone down."
University faculty salary increases, nearly frozen by the recession and higher education budget cuts, hit a 50-year low this year nationwide, according to a recent report by the American Association of University Professors.
The report, titled "No Refuge," showed an increase of 1.2 percent in faculty salaries from 2009 to 2010. Adjusted for inflation, salaries for continuing faculty members showed the first actual decrease since the hyperinflation years of the late 1970s, according to the report.
Compensation packages for faculty, which also are tracked in the report and include health insurance and retirement benefits, are calculated as much higher. For example, at UTC, the average faculty salary is $64,500, but average compensation is reported as $85,400.
UTC officials said benefits are counted as about 41 percent of total salary.
"The benefits portion of our compensation package has traditionally been very generous," said Chuck Cantrell, a UTC spokesman. "However, there is no question that salaries have lagged behind."
Many Georgia universities had average salary increases far lower than the national average. Georgia Tech and the University of Georgia had increases under 1 percent. Berry College in Rome, Ga., had a decrease of 1.7 percent.
Covenant College fared better with a 2.6 percent increase in faculty pay. But the year before was tougher, said Lance Wescher, assistant professor of economy and head of the benefits committee at Covenant.
"We had a wage freeze, a reduction in the 401k contribution and the increased cost of health insurance has been passed on to us," Dr. Wescher said. "There are a lot of people on faculty for whom budgets are quite tight, and that has been a big hit to them."
Georgia Northwestern Technical College and Dalton State College were not included in the report.
COMPENSATION TOTALSTennesseeAverage compensation with salary and benefits$127,900 -- Vanderbilt$106,700 -- Sewanee: The University of the South$105,100 -- University of Tennessee$85,400 -- UTC$76,600 -- UT Martin$65,600 -- Lee University$56,100 -- Tennessee Wesleyan CollegeSource: American Association of University ProfessorsGeorgiaAverage compensation with salary and benefits$155,100 -- Emory University$135,900 -- Georgia Tech$108,100 -- University of Georgia$80,100 -- Berry College$74,500 -- Covenant CollegeSource: American Association of University Professors
Pay increases this year at some private colleges in Tennessee were minimal or non-existent. Lee University had no increase in pay, while the University of the South increased pay 1.2 percent, the report shows. Vanderbilt University cut pay by 1.4 percent.
Still, schools with the University of Tennessee system, including UTC, had modest growth in pay when compared to some of their regional counterparts.
The University of Tennessee boosted average pay by 5.2 percent; UT Martin's pay increased 2.9 percent; and UTC's pay went up 2.2 percent, documents show.
Chattanooga State Community College was not included in the report.
UT schools have been able to adjust some salaries tagged as much lower than typical pay at peer institutions, but there have been no across-the-board cost-of-living increases for many years, officials said.
"It is a challenge, and the economy has really exacerbated part of the problem," said Dr. Richard Brown, vice chancellor of finance and operations at UTC. "We have been constrained by a failing economy ... It's difficult to plan compensation when you are just struggling to keep full-time people working."
The only way to keep salary increases in Tennessee and Georgia from screeching to a halt is for schools to charge students more for their education, officials said.
Dr. Brown said UTC officials want to push for at least a 7 percent tuition increase, on par with last year's fee hike. The UT board will vote on those fees in June.
In the meantime, a system-wide committee is looking at ways UT schools can compensate competitively.
"It has been difficult to level the compensation playing field," Dr. Brown said. "It will require a significant infusion of new dollars from the state of Tennessee. I would love to add a line item to improve pay for faculty and staff, but that depends on the money on the table."
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