To see a spreadsheet of professors’ salaries comparisons, click here.
To view the salary database, click here.
Both telling and somewhat misleading reports released by the Office of Budget and Planning in May show average faculty salaries at LSU are below those at peer universities in the South and Midwest.One report obtained by The Daily Reveille compared average fall 2007 salaries of LSU faculty members by rank to average salaries at 11 land-grant institutions that have a Carnegie classification of “Research Universities (very high research activity)” and have no medical school. The report found that the entire LSU faculty makes an average of about $8.4 million less than these peers.The second report obtained by The Daily Reveille compared average LSU fall 2007 faculty salaries to salaries at all participating Southern Regional Education Board Four-Year 1 institutions and found that the entire LSU faculty make an average of about $7 million less than whole faculties at these peers.Among the 11 land-grant, very high research activity institutions compared in the first report are Purdue University, Iowa State University and Kansas State University. Peer universities compared in the SREB report include the University of Florida, University of Texas at Austin and West Virginia University. Many schools, like the University of Georgia and Texas A&M University, appear on both lists.The annual reports are distributed to deans and department chairs. Kevin Carman, College of Basic Sciences dean, said he uses the study as a way of keeping an eye on the competition, but that the figures can be “deceptive.””There’s lots of variables that go into salaries,” Carman said. “If you live in Los Angeles, the cost of living is so much higher.”An assistant professor in the department of chemistry at LSU makes an average of only $1,027 less than an assistant professor in chemistry at other SREB institutions and only an average of $1,438 less than assistant professors at land-grant institutions. Carman said that because most faculty are hired as assistant professors, it is important to keep these salaries competitive.The College of Basic Sciences’ average assistant professor salary is competitive within every department compared to both the SREB and land-grant schools, but it is lagging in instructor salaries on both lists.”Over the last few years, we’ve had regular pay raises for the most part, and I think that LSU has made substantial progress in terms of how our salaries compare to certainly our southern regional peers,” Carman said. “We are still behind national peers.”LSU has offered faculty an average pay increase of 3.8 percent during the last nine years, a number comparable to universities around the country, said Bob Kuhn, associate vice chancellor of budget and planning. The main focus of LSU and the Flagship Agenda is the recruitment and retention of quality faculty, he said.For now, the University is competitive with the average assistant professor salary, according to the report.”I think our salaries are competitive,” Carman said. “They probably need to be more competitive.”The total assistant professor salaries at LSU are about $890,000 behind both peer groups — comfortably close to the average. But LSU’s average of all professor salaries is about $4 million below both peer groups. The College of Agriculture has the biggest difference in total professor salary for the college — about $1.3 million less than other SREB schools and about $1.6 million less than the land-grant institutions.Kenneth Koonce, College of Agriculture dean, said the real challenge is trying to maintain the faculty, who often leave for better paying jobs once they are professors, he said.”There’s not a whole lot we can do with it,” Koonce said. “To increase the salaries would require a huge influx of money, and I don’t see that happening.”Kuhn said several factors can cause large differences in average professor salaries, including a university’s ability to give higher and more frequent pay increases, how new a department or college is at a university and the report’s sometimes misleading numbers.For instance, a professor who has taught at a university for 25 years makes more money than someone who was recently promoted to professor, but they will be averaged together for the study — causing the numbers to be skewed.Chancellor Michael Martin said private philanthropy plays a major role in raising salary averages. The Forever LSU campaign, whose goal is to raise $750 million for the University by 2010, has raised about $570 million, according to a Forever LSU news release in November.”We’ve got to build an endowment that gives us a cushion that allows us to do what many of those institutions can do,” Martin said.Martin said neither a tuition increase nor state funds will be used to bring salaries to or above average.”I still think the state has a responsibility to help us at every turn because they have a big stake in us,” Martin said. “But … in the coming years I don’t think that’s going to be sufficient. It’s going to take private philanthropy to get us there. And the good news is, we’ve got a lot of people out there from this institution who are remarkably successful, who love us.”Others think that while private philanthropy is a part of the salary puzzle, other issues — like benefit packages — need to be addressed first.Kevin Cope, Faculty Senate president, said he thinks the salary situation is worse at LSU than it appears because the study doesn’t involve benefit packages — which are severely lacking in comparison to schools nationwide, he said.Cope said he is worried about salary compression — when a lower-level faculty member gets a pay raise, often to compete at market value, closing the gap between them and veteran professors.The baby-boomer generation turned 62 this January, according to Martin. As they inch closer to retirement, a huge population of faculty will be retiring across the country — meaning a tighter market and a greater need for more attractive salaries.”You look at these reports and you say, ‘Well, we’re up to average,'” Carman said. “Is that where we want to be?”—-Contact Kyle Bove at [email protected].
https://www.lsureveille.com/misc/lsu_salary_database