Monday, August 17, 2009

"Thanks for Ruining My Day." Some Salary Followups.


  • Full Prof, >30 years experience, flagship state university, Biochemistry: $113,000 for 11 months, if I have enough money in the grants after I pay for light bulbs, chemicals and technicians. Otherwise 9/11ths of that. Teaching load: two team-taught freshman courses (1/3 each), one hundred-student upper-division course by myself, one-third of the introductory grad courses. Five major committees including campus P&T (there goes February and March).
  • I just finished my 8th year--$54,000, in a private, religious (sort of) 4 yr in Midwest. It took going through multiple schools and lots of negotiating, threatening to leave, and gender equity raises to get here. I'm in the sciences, and teach 4/4.
  • Jewish studies (historian), 3-2 teaching load, assistant prof (6th year), $57,000.
  • I'm in my first year on the tenure track at a midwestern urban R1. I teach 2/2 in a social science field and make $62,000.
  • I'm in my fifth year as assistant professor (Humanities, 3/2 load) in a large Canadian university and make just over $95,000 CAD; currently about $85,750 USD. I don't complain about my pay (though I live in an expensive city and carry plenty of credit card debt).
  • I teach 4/4 at a state comprehensive university in the northeast central US. I've been here 15 years and am a full prof. My field is philosophy, and I make $100,000.
  • Someone's never heard of faculty making more than $100 K? Clearly someone has never heard of engineering faculty who are Distinguished Professors (Above Scale) at major research universities. I bet medical faculty do similarly well. Here's the secret: They busted their asses to do hard things not many people want to do AND for which people with lots of money want to pay them. Whereas you humanities types are (nearly literally) a dime a dozen and not doing anything people are going to line up to pay you tons of money to do. And I hope to Goddess you knew that going in. Me? I'm in the social sciences and expect to do better than $60 K but probably not so well as $150 K. (My secret? I'm not stuck with faculty jobs as my only option.) And I am totally fine with that. I made sure I knew the score going in.
  • 3/3 load at a SLAC in pacific northwest, $70,000.
  • "I must confess I don't have any experience with part-time adjuncts, but the numbers people are reporting simply can't be real. I don't know anyone who'd teach for $3000 a class as some of your quoted numbers suggest." Well let me tell you it IS real. And those of you who make more and apparently only surround yourselves with others who make more should get your heads out of the sand and realize how hard it is for some of us to earn a living. My Northwest community college pays exactly $3,163.80 to teach a 5 credit class. I feel bad for the poor saps who are assigned the 4-credit classes (which is most of them) which pay less than $3000 per class. Teaching four such classes would be considered a full time load but being paid per class amounts to a whopping $12,655.20. AND no benefits. I even have to pay for a damned parking pass at my school. We part-timers are abused. And to the guy who said "Don't accept the number" and "Nobody put a gun to your head" ... Could you please come on over to my house and pay my mortgage and buy groceries for me while I'm negotiating a better salary? Thanks. It may take a while because there are ten other shmucks in line behind me willing to take the tiny salary. The college doesn't really care whether or not they are getting the best teacher, they just care about enrollment numbers and profit margins.
  • Psychology, $95,000, ordinary private uni in the south.
  • Salaries over $150K are possible and worth it for some superstars. We have several profs who make more than our university president and he’s happy to let everybody know it (if only because we might think his salary is small). Schools get about 20% overhead from all research grants and can hire an adjunct to teach for you while your grant pays your full salary. Patents are the big prize. Plus, the publicity of having a world-renowned scientist is valuable too, especially for schools that don’t have good athletics programs – I mean, don’t get free 3-hour commercials on fall Saturday afternoons and in March.
  • I get $2412.34 per class at a crappy community college in Pennsylvania. And I teach exactly that hard, at about 10% of my ability, training, and inclination.
  • When I was hired, I was shown my salary on a cute little AAUP salary graph that showed me "roughly" in the middle of the new assistant professors. Fine, I thought. Now ten years in, I'm making $54,000 in the humanities, and we just hired two half-retards fresh out of grad school at $58k and $61k. Who do I call about that?
  • Humanities, poor me, $41,500, fourth year, 4/4.
  • As a grad student, I taught (not TA'd) a whole ton of seminar classes at a wannabe-Ivy research university. I was paid between $1500 and $4500 per course. I later taught 2/2 as an adjunct in the same department at the same university and made $42,000/year. Then I took my Ph.D. and got the hell out of academia; I now make $61,800/year working in industry. And for once, I believe in what I'm doing. Rumor had it that my grad school advisor was pulling in over $250,000/year--because he brought in lots of grant money, he threatened to leave the university, so they gave him some kind of big award and big salary to make him stay.
  • Religion proffie, brand new, first contract for $61,000, negotiated up from offer of $52k.
  • Oh good, another reason for me to hate my fucking life. $49,000, 5/5 load, fifth year, Sociology.
  • I'm starting my 6th year about to apply for tenure in the Physics Department at a small uni in the South. I typically have 12-14 contact hours per term. Started at $47,940 in 2004 and am making $52,220 now. Might have been more but our former President left us in some financial distress. I get more if I pull in a grant and have summer salary. I don't teach in the summer so that salary is for 9 months. For those at public institutions - you can usually get a copy of your uni's budget (and faculty/staff salaries) at the library. Interesting reading!
  • Art history, $39,500, second year at a state college in the south.
  • Okay, you want the dirt. One weekend I went to do photocopying for a class in the main office of my department. (A totally useless state school in Michigan.) As I was waiting for copies to collate, I noticed a file cabinet ajar behind the department secretary's desk. Of course I shouldn't have, but I strolled over, saw my name on a personnel file, and picked it up. By the time the orgy was over, I knew the salary of ALL of my colleagues. Deadwood Dick made $120,000. Sexy Suzie made $70,000. I made $66,000. The range was astonishing, and blew my mind. Three people on the exact same year teaching the same load, had salaries of $80,000, $67,000, and $50,000. Is there that much negotiating going on that I don't know about?
  • Adjunct teaching 6-7 a year at $2200 a class. (Class size 35+.)
  • I may be hopeless naive, and just a sweet Southern belle who doesn't like to think about these things, but I'm nearly apoplectic over the fact that you've reported someone in my own discipline who makes nearly FIVE TIMES my salary. Thank you for ruining my day! I swear I wish I could find that person and beat him/her with a Louisville Slugger.
  • $59,000, Communications, big state school in Midwest.
  • I'm starting my 6th year about to apply for tenure in the Physics Department at a small uni in the South. I typically have 12-14 contact hours per term. Started at $47,940 in 2004 and am making $52,220 now. Might have been more but our former President left us in some financial distress. I get more if I pull in a grant and have summer salary. I don't teach in the summer so that salary is for 9 months. For those at public institutions - you can usually get a copy of your uni's budget (and faculty/staff salaries) at the library. Interesting reading!
  • $42,000, first year t-t in English, SLAC in south.
  • $47k. I'm in a teaching-only term faculty position, 6 large lecture classes and supervision of one lab course a year, state U in the upper South, 10 years experience as a professor and had tenure at a previous university. It's a living and I'm glad to have it.
  • Been at a Midwestern Community College for 6yrs. Grossed 75,000. Teach 6 classes. Will hire a new person for next fall – we have a scale, but a PhD with a few years of teaching could start at 4
  • Great survey and very informative.....although it makes me feel SORRY for myself. I wish more people identified the region of the country they live in and the area in which they teach. Anyway, I'm in the humanities and teach a 3-3 at a small comprehensive college in the Midwest. I'm starting my fourth year and make (almost) $49,000. (I was hired at $45,000).
  • $43,000 - Assistant Professor starting 3rd year in Arts/Humanities at "Flagship" in SW State. No raises at institution in years (except for upper admin). Mandatory furloughs loom.
  • Full time, 3/3, all freshman composition, at a big state uni. Non-tenure track. Four years in: $37,900.
  • The strangest thing happened. I got a 12% pay raise this year. I'll make $89K if I don't teach in the summer. No, I did not get a promotion - I made full a few years ago. We have a equity clause in our union contract that kicked in this year despite state budget cuts and declining enrollment. I teach 2/2 in a science related field at a mediocre state research Uni in the middle of nowhere.
  • I teach 4/4 at a state comprehensive in the east central US. I've been here 15 years and am a full prof. I make $100,000.