University of Washington chapter
American Association of 
University Professors  

from Faculty Issues and Concerns listserve

Good news for loyal faculty 
9 May 2005


AAUP's campaign to highlight the "loyal faculty penalty" has yielded results. The budget that
President Emmert will propose to the Board of Regents this week includes $2 million to begin to
address salary compression among senior faculty. This is above and beyond the 3.2% salary
increase that the Legislature provided in the state budget.

$2 million won't solve the problem of years of compression/inversion, but it is a good start.
AAUP flagged the loyal faculty penalty in the State of the Faculty Report Card last fall,
showing that years of service at UW were a good inverse predictor of salary--the longer you
serve, the further your salary falls behind peer norms.

Over the past six months AAUP has worked with Faculty Senate leaders and met with the President
and Provost, emphasizing the need to finally do something about compression. The campaign
worked. The President's budget proposal looks like this:

2% increases on the basis of "continuing merit"

1.2% will be distributed at the college level, either for "extra merit" or "equity"

$1.5 million will be used for recruitment and retention

$2 million will be designated for "senior faculty retention" and used to address compression at
the full professor and associate professor ranks