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from
Faculty Issues and Concerns listserve
6 Dec 2005
Subject: Compression Fund working group report
Here is the report of the Provost's working group:
Working Group on Policy choices for Allocating $2 Million to Address Compression
in Faculty Salaries
Report
October 18, 2005
On June 5, 2005, Interim Provost David Thorud charged the "Working Group on
Policy Choices for Allocating $2 Million to Address Compression in Faculty
Salaries" (hereafter referred to as "The Compression Working Group") with the
task of identifying "a range of possible choices for allocating and applying the
$2 million to address compression." The committee was asked as well to
"elaborate on the pros and cons of various approaches" to provide materials for
a vetting process.
The Working Group met regularly throughout the summer to assess data and
relevant issues to defining and analyzing compression. In addition, the Working
Group invited a sub-group of department chairs who served as a group of
consultants in thinking through what compression looks like at the department
level and how it may vary by discipline, department culture, and the variations
of national markets.
The Compression Working Group was asked specifically to examine several
assumptions that have underlain discussions about salary compression. Our report
begins with the committee's comments on these assumptions:
1. "The $2 million will not be adequate to fully address institutional
compression issues. Hence, additional increments of compression funding will
probably be needed over, say, the next 4-5 years." Comments: The Compression
Working Group concurs with this assumption and strongly urges the Provost to
consider making repeated investments to address the issue of faculty salary
compression. One of the committee's goals was to try and identify a target
range of additional investment that would be needed to address the compression
problem in a substantive way, thereby enabling the Provost to engage in
longer-range planning about resources needed to address compression. For a
variety of reasons, this figure proved more elusive than initially thought.
Different methods of calculating compression yielded different totals. These
methods of calculation and the long-range totals associated with them will be
discussed further in the report.
2. "Compression is in the eye of the beholder and there are many beholders.
Hence, a working definition of compression will be needed as a product of the
Group's analysis." Comments: The Working Group addressed two issues here:
definition of compression and difference between compression and inversion. One
definition of compression, put forward by Robert K. Toutkoushian, is that "The
term salary compression refers to an unusually small salary differential between
faculty with different levels of experience."
As for the issue of inversion versus compression, the Working Group agrees that,
for the purposes of this discussion, there is no meaningful difference between
salary compression and salary inversion; both reflect the same problem and
require the same attention. The lack of a meaningful difference is apparent from
a simple example of two meritorious full professors. One is paid a dollar a year
more than an assistant professor, the other a dollar less. The first is a victim
of salary compression, the second of salary inversion. Their material situations
are essentially identical.
3. "After identifying compressed salaries, the remedy in terms of additional
salary allocation will be based on the merits of the academic record of the
individuals identified. For example, "years in grade" would not be a sufficient
reason in itself to award additional compression dollars to a compressed
salary." Comments: The Working Group concurs and recommends that the Provost
allocate these funds to address salary compression of highly meritorious
faculty.
4. "The recently developed guidelines for "unit adjustments" may or may not have
a role to play in the allocation and application of compression dollars."
Comments: The Working Group concurs that, to the extent that allocations are
made by unit, these guidelines may be of use to deans and chancellors as they
consider possible differential allocations.
5. "The $2 million, in this case, is limited to faculty." Comments: The Working
Group concurs but also had some discussions as to the definition of "faculty."
Should, for example, the compression funds be available to lecturers? Part-time
faculty? Librarians? Should they be limited to Associate and Full Professors,
who have presumably been at UW long enough to feel the effects of a compressed
salary system, or should they be available to Assistant Professors as well? The
Working Group recommends that compression funds be limited to tenure-line
faculty, with primary emphasis being upon those in the Associate and Full ranks.
The Working Group recommends that individual deans and chancellors be given
latitude to consider exceptional appeals that may be brought forward regarding
full-time lecturers.
6. "Whatever system is selected for allocation of these funds, the
administration will want an approval role regarding application recommendations
from the units identified for potential compression funding. Further, a
mechanism is probably needed for negotiated arrangements between the
administration and the involved units. Some flexibility is needed to deal with
unanticipated complications. Bureaucratic rigidity would not be helpful."
Comments: The Working Group concurs that, because of the subtleties and nuances
of individual compression cases, flexibility be encouraged.
After extensive discussion, the Working Group reached agreement upon the
following:
1. In order to allocate the $2 million as equitably as possible across campuses,
schools and colleges, the Provost should be informed in this first round of
allocations by multiple forms of data. The data on peer comparisons and
deviations from reasonable salary growth for meritorious faculty, which form
part of this report, should help to guide the development of such a distribution
policy. We recognize that special consideration will be required for units that
have the market strength to address some or all of their compression/inversion
issues through tuition increases, as well as for units whose problems need to be
addressed earlier, rather than later, in this multi-year process. Regardless,
the distribution policy should be as transparent as possible.
2. In recognition of the complex and variable salary histories of individual
academic units and individual faculty, deans and chancellors should be given
considerable flexibility in allocating their funds, recognizing that this is a
multi-year problem. The strategy in each campus, school or college should be
based on a broad collegial discussion and should be as transparent as possible.
3. The charge letter to the Working Group made clear the Provost's recognition
that the elimination of inappropriate cases of salary compression/inversion
would take several years. Our Committee estimates that $2 million per year for
six or seven years will be required to address the problem. We urge the
President and Provost to make such an ongoing investment a top budgetary
priority.
4. Allocation of adjustments for compression should follow the policies and
guidelines put forward in the Faculty Code.
Explanation of salary data:
The Working Group reflected upon the multiple ways in which compression could be
identified in a unit and investigated several ways of depicting salary
distributions within units. The Working Group recognized that compression was
the result of two primary factors: first, lack of resources to keep UW salaries
as a whole competitive with market rate salaries for like institutions,
including the variability of resources as they fluctuate from one year to the
next; and second, the fact that limited existing resources are often targeted
towards recruitment and retention, often leaving fewer resources available by
unit to address compression. Consequently, the Working Group prefers to utilize
data that reflect both of these issues: peer salary levels and expected salary
progression.
-- Peer salary data: Because UW competes on a national basis with peer
institutions, the UW salary system should be informed by an understanding of
competitive salary levels. Such an understanding implies that:
o Peer salary information provides a data point (average or median) around which
individual salaries should cluster, within a reasonable range (ranges themselves
often vary by discipline and field). In other words, a peer salary level for a
particular rank and discipline does not imply that all UW faculty in a similar
discipline and rank should be paid at that salary level. Collegial assessment
should inform the appropriate relationships of an individual's salary to that
peer data.
o The most readily available peer data is that of the HECB 24. Other peer data,
such as the OFM 8 or relevant peer data for UW Bothell and UW Tacoma, would be
informative as well.
--Expected salary progression: Guided by recent policy decisions that a
meritorious faculty member should merit a minimum of a 2% increase in any given
year, the Working Group examined data that projected a faculty member's salary
over the course of a career with an expected increase of 2% per year relative to
the current starting salary for incoming assistant professors. An individual's
current salary level could then be compared to this projected salary level.
o Such a salary progression chart assumes that a faculty member meets the
expectations associated with such an annual increase, as outlined in the Faculty
Code.
o Such a salary progression chart would need, of course, to be placed in a
context of collegial assessment and is not intended to hold predictive value for
all faculty salaries.
While each of these data systems has its own limitations, each is useful in
providing information regarding UW salary levels. Consequently, the Working
Group recommends that a combination of these data systems, along with other
relevant information as to total number and composition of faculty, be utilized
in order to gather a fuller picture of unit and individual salary levels.
Committee members:
Sandra Archibald
David Hodge
Arthur Nowell
Gary Quarfoth
Gail Stygall
Doug Wadden
Ross Heath, Co-Chair
Susan Jeffords, Co-Chair
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