April
27, 2001
RATIONALE
The
principle of “equal pay for equal work” has always been hard to apply in
academia. Because some fields of study are far more attractive to the outside
world than others, differentials in workloads and salary levels among divisions
(broadly speaking, in favor of the sciences over the humanities) seem to be
inevitable.
Within
any single department, however, salary ranges are determined by a combination
of negotiating power, happenstance, history, and university policy. At present,
these salary ranges can be extremely wide, and are seemingly unchecked (except
by reviews designed to avoid any appearance of bias based on sex, race, or
age).
The “free market” argument, emphasizing the beauties of unbridled capitalism, is often used to justify such uncontrolled salary ranges. On this point we offer two observations. First: While markets in the larger society are never perfectly free, markets in academia are even less free (since tenure prevents the university from “reselling” professors, and the corresponding “have gun will travel” stance often can’t be maintained by people with local commitments). Second: While markets in the larger society are free up to a point, they are ultimately constrained by other values (since a social safety net must be kept in place).
Therefore,
held in balance with the “free-market” argument should be the fact that
universities rely, to a degree often underestimated, on personal dedication and
institutional loyalty. Faculty members must constantly do things that they are
not (and cannot be) specifically forced to do, or supervised while doing. A
sense of the university as a community, based on a measure of mutual concern and
social justice, is an indispensable part of the loyalty that makes people
willing to use their own time and energy for its improvement.
We
want to offer two proposals that would contribute to this balance. They would
establish criteria for salary ranges at both the bottom and the top of the
instructional hierarchy.
PART
ONE: SALARY RANGES (AND JOB TITLES?) FOR LANGUAGE LECTURERS
Any
rational administrator would prefer to maintain flexibility at all costs, and
save money if possible, and thus would use non-tenurable instructors to the
maximum extent feasible. Use of such “other ranks” of instructors is widespread
within the university, and is set to increase further. Whether this is a good
idea or not is outside our present purview. For the present, we want to focus
on the very difficult situation of our Language Lecturers.
Language
Lecturers are employed by a number of departments to organize and teach
language courses, at elementary and intermediate and sometimes advanced levels.
Many Language Lecturers also work with graduate students. Most have Ph.D.
degrees. Many publish academic articles and books; most attend conferences and
prepare teaching materials. All have course loads heavier than those of
professors in their departments. While they are just beginning to be offered a
few perks, compared to their professorial colleagues they are treated as
second-class citizens in every way.
Salary
ranges for Language Lecturers are at present extremely low, mostly in the 30-40
thousand dollar range (and often in the lower half of even that range).
Obviously, these salaries need to be raised--especially since opportunities for
promotion are very limited, so that Lecturers often remain at these salary
levels for many years. We have found much agreement with our call for an
increased salary range, and no disagreement. Beyond this simple proposal,
however, we suggest a further measure.
We
suggest that within each department, we work toward a situation in which no
Language Lecturer is paid less than, say, 85 percent of what the lowest-paid
Assistant Professor in that department is paid. Such a pegging of Language
Lecturer salaries to professorial ones would contribute to the
professionalization of the position of Language Lecturer, and enhance our
ability to attract and keep good people. It would also emphasize our determination
not to end up with an invidious two-tiered system in which colleagues who spend
more time teaching are valued less highly than those who spend less time
teaching. In short, we are invoking the principle of “equal pay for equal work.”
Some
of our colleagues in the Faculty Caucus have other ideas as to how we should
determine the proper “floor” level for Lecturer salaries. One possible approach
is by comparing our salaries with those of our peers. At present, we do not
compare too well. We have recently learned of one case in which, within the
same department, a Language Associate (the comparable rank) paid by Barnard
receives a significantly higher salary than a Language Lecturer paid by
Columbia, for the same courseload. We hope to work with the Faculty Caucuses
and the Faculty Affairs Committee during the coming year on this and related
issues. For example, as part of an enhanced professionalization, should the
title of the position be changed from “Language Lecturer” to something like “Professor
of the Practice”? We are only beginning to explore such questions.
PART
TWO: SALARY RANGES FOR SENIOR PROFESSORS
At
present, we know anecdotally of at least one A&S department in which the
salary range for senior professors approaches two to one: that is, the
highest-paid full professor is paid about twice as much as the lowest-paid full
professor, for the same workload and the same kinds of work. We have not been
able to discover how common this situation is, but we don’t think it’s a
desirable one. We have heard that its demoralizing and friction-generating
effects (since people often do end up knowing salaries within their own department)
are considerable.
The
question is one of proportion: nobody would argue that all people of the same
rank should be paid exactly the same amount, but neither would anybody argue
that, say, three-fold or four-fold salary ratios were manageable within the
same rank and the same department. Where is the line to be drawn? Wherever it
is drawn (and not to decide is also to decide), the decision can only be made
by political will and institutional choice.
We
suggest that something like a fifty-percent differential should be the normal
maximum permitted. That is, within any one department, the highest-paid full
professor should be paid not more than about one and one-half times as much as
the lowest-paid full professor. This range is ample to allow for a variety of
special individual circumstances, and if it is in danger of being exceeded, an
inquiry should be triggered, to see whether some extraordinary factor is
involved, or whether some kind of appropriate salary adjustments should be
made.
Many
issues are involved here, and not all our colleagues are ready to agree with us
about our proposal. We hope this question too can be explored in more depth
during the coming year. We want the Senate to be a place for genuine discussion
of issues that affect us all.
A
FINAL NOTE
We
are now more aware than ever of how difficult it is to obtain data about
salaries. At public universities, salaries are part of the public record; there’s
no evidence that this openness has destroyed their institutional integrity or
intolerably invaded people’s privacy. Thus the extremely tight control
maintained over information about salaries at Columbia is not the only possible
policy that could be adopted. We would favor at least somewhat more openness.
Fran
Pritchett, Subcommittee Chair