College faculty hit hard by recession

Though the average annual salary for full-time IU-Bloomington professors has increased from the previous year’s $118,400 to $120,700 in 2009-10, according to a searchable database on The Chronicle of Higher Education website, it does not figure to increase much, if at all, during this economic recession.

A survey by the American Association of University Professors found that college professors’ paychecks barely improved from the previous year, undergoing a 1.2 percent increase, the lowest in 50 years.

AAUP discussed the severity of the historically low increase in its “2009-10 Report on the Economic Status of the Profession.”

“This is well below the rate of inflation recorded between December 2008 and December 2009, 2.7 percent, which means that the earning power of many (if not most) full-time faculty members is less than it was one year ago,” according to the report.

The AAUP’s faculty salary survey, which is limited to faculty members currently employed full-time, found that faculty members at two-thirds of the 1,141 higher education institutions experienced either a cut in pay, a freeze in raise or an increase of less than 2 percent on average in last two years.

In the report, AAUP encouraged college professors to make sure their institutions have a “recovery plan for a ‘return to normalcy’ once the economic crisis is past.” Even they are facing the tough economic status of the profession.

AAUP found a full-time faculty member was paid $80,368 in 2009-10, which was battered by unpaid furloughs whose influences were represented in the report.

As part of IU’s $177 million in cost reductions, for the first time in at least 50 years, IU froze salaries in 2009-10, which resulted in one-time savings of $25.2 million, according to a University release in December 2009.

Student trustee Abbey Stemler said the president and IU board of trustees are working hard to lower expenses through structural changes such as centralizing purchasing.

“The president and the trustees are taking a very conservative approach because we are preparing for further cuts in state appropriations,” Stemler said. However, she mentioned the possibility of a change in the future.

“If state revenues improve and we continue to have strong enrollments, all University employees will hopefully see a salary increase of around 2 percent in the next year or two.”

Stemler said the trustees and University administration are aware of the hard financial period and that they have been working on solutions for that.

“We want to continue to make sound and smart decisions and provide University faculty and staff with the care and compensation they deserve,” she said.