A Raise in Name Only

According to the American Association of University Professors' 2009-10 Report on the Economic Status of the Profession, "the average salary for a full-time faculty member was only 1.2 percent higher in 2009-10 than in the previous academic year, the lowest year-to-year change recorded in the 50 years of this comprehensive annual survey." The report also says that "about 13 percent of institutions reported a decrease in rates of more than half a percentage point from 2008-09 levels." John Curtis, the AAUP's director of research and public policy, told Inside Higher Ed that "he believes that additional colleges made midyear cuts that may not be reflected in the data," and that "since contributions are based on salaries, and many of those were frozen this year, those who assumed that they would benefit from stable employee matches of a steadily growing salary may feel a double impact." Curtis also told the New York Times that the survey neglects to "capture the effect of the unpaid furloughs a lot of faculty were forced to take this year," and that it also does not account for part-time faculty members.