Podcast Series: Innovations in Education

Explore the full series of eCampus News podcasts hosted by Kevin Hogan—created to keep you on the cutting edge of innovations in education.

Posting of profs’ salaries online draws scrutiny

Florida professors earn an average of $80,000 annually.

Are university professors paid too much in Florida? The salaries that Gov. Rick Scott posted online days ago have spurred debates across the state about whether these educators are worth what they make—and Scott’s move also has come under fire from those who say the information is presented without additional context that can help clarify the debate.

Faculty leaders stress that professors in Florida’s public universities earn less than their peers in many other states. Universities must offer competitive salaries, they insist, if the state is to attract talented faculty needed to educate tomorrow’s work force.

The average salaries of full-time professors at public universities in Florida offering bachelor’s, master’s, and doctoral degrees fall about $6,000 below the national average, said John W. Curtis, director of research and public policy with the American Association of University Professors.…Read More

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Study finds smallest increase in faculty pay in 50 years

The New York Times reports that academic pay has been squeezed by the recession, according to the annual salary survey by the American Association of University Professors. Over all, salaries for this academic year are 1.2 percent higher than last year, the smallest increase recorded in the survey’s 50 years—and well below the 2.7-percent inflation rate from December 2008 to December 2009. The survey found that average salary levels actually decreased this academic year at a third of colleges and universities, compared with 9 percent that reported lower average salaries in the previous two surveys. Private and church-related universities reported shrinking average salaries more often than public institutions. And the academic pay situation may be even worse than the survey indicates, according to John Curtis, the association’s director of research and policy. “A lot of faculty are losing ground, and the data probably underestimate the seriousness of the problems with faculty salary this year, because we’re only looking at full-time faculty and, as we’ve seen for several years, there’s an increasing number of part-time faculty, who are not included,” Curtis said. Given the widespread distress about high college costs, shrinking state support for public universities, and plummeting endowment values at private universities, some experts said this year’s small faculty salary gains were not unexpected…

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