Ali Manzano
Staff Writer
This year the Seaver Faculty Association is making faculty salaries its primary concern.
As the administration is working to finalize the 2005-2006 budget, SFA hopes to increase Pepperdine faculty salaries, particularly for those at the full professor status.
SFA is neither a union, nor is it a faculty senate. SFA provides a forum for input for faculty to be active in shaping the university at an administrative level, according to members.
This year, the faculty members said they think that an increase in salaries is the foremost issue. According to Dr. Ron Batchelder, professor of economics and current SFA president, the raise in salaries and a renovation of the promotions programs are overdue. According to his calculations, in the last eight years tuition has risen 42 percent while faculty salaries have only risen by 26 percent. Because more raises are available at the associate and assistant professor status, full professors have only experienced a raise of 15 percent, while inflation for Southern California has risen by 21.4 percent since 1997.
“I think it’s important to the school to hold onto faculty and recruit new faculty,” Batchelder said. “If we’re going to try to get good professors, in certain areas it will be very difficult to offer salaries that are competitive.”
Each year a general raise of approximately 1 percent is allocated. Despite rising tuition, this had declined from its past 2 percent, and this year only a 1/2 percent increase was given. This annual income increase can fail to meet the increase in faculty members’ medical benefits package, paid from their salaries.
Professors go through a series of promotions, while gaining experience and growing professionally at Pepperdine, until they reach full-professor status. Once a professor reaches this level, there are few further incentives that motivate them or reward them for the service that they continue, Batchelder explained.
“There’s a competitive market out there and Pepperdine faculty are asked to do something unique and to make a commitment to this institution, which often means lowering their marketability,” he said.
After years of commitment to Pepperdine, the full professor has reached the top with no further promotions.
“They’ve sort of locked you in,” Batchelder said.
In 1999 a report was prepared by the SFA concerning Seaver faculty salaries.
At that time the study concluded that assistant and associate professors were very well paid and that full professors were also sufficiently paid in comparison to other universities in similar cost-of-living areas.
Dr. Robin Perrin, professor of Sociology and former SFA president, said four years ago the faculty community had no basis to ask for salary raises. However, after not keeping up with cost-of-living increases for the last few years, they might have a case for it now.
Dr. Michael Feltner, a natural science professor and president of the SFA at the time of the report, agreed with Batchelder that it’s time for a reassessment of salaries.
“I think the data indicates that it’s time we took a quantitative look at the situation, since that time [of the report] our raises have been at or below the national averages,” Feltner said. “For Pepperdine to continue to grow and advance we need to be able to attract and retain high quality faculty.”
According to the American Association of University Professors, for the academic year 2003-2004 a full professor at Pepperdine was being paid an average of $103,300 annually.
Pepperdine is ranked No. 52 in the US News and World Report’s America’s Best Colleges for 2005. Schools tied with Pepperdine are Syracruse University and George Washington University.
Full professors at George Washington make $106,400, while at Syracuse the annual salary averages $90,900. University of Portland, a private school with 2,739 students is similar to Pepperdine in terms of size and enrollment. Their full professor salary average is $73,200.
In comparison to the American job market, Pepperdine professors are on the high end of the earning spectrum. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the nine best paying jobs in America range from $133,350 for dentists to $189,590 for surgeons.
Although not every professor at Pepperdine is being paid $103,300, some question how the virtue of being frugal fits in to the demands for a higher paycheck.
Perrin said he thought Pepperdine had long left that standard behind.
“As an institution we aren’t playing the frugal game,” Perrin said. “We have long ago given up the notion that as a Christian school we demand less.”
However, qualifications and cost of living add complexity to this comparison. “Where we’re paid relative to everyone else in the rest of the US is very difficult to assess,” Feltner said. “You must look at us in comparison to our peers and our cost of living.”
10-07-2004
