QUESTION 15: Faculty who are more recently hired at KSU sometimes are offered higher salaries than faculty who have worked at KSU for a longer time. To your knowledge, has this happened recently in your department?
Sixty-one of the 67 faculty members (91.0%) responded to this question. Of these, 42 (68.9%) reported that new faculty members have been hired in their departments at higher salaries than current faculty members are earning. Seven faculty members (11.5%) reported that this had not occurred in their area. Thirteen faculty members (21.3%) reported that they did not know whether this had occurred. Five (8.2%) declined to respond to this question.
QUESTION 16: What steps, if any, do you think KSU should take to prevent newly hired faculty from being paid at equal or higher rates than long-time KSU faculty?
Sixty-three faculty of the 67 faculty members (94.0%) responded to this question, while four faculty members (5.0%) declined to respond. Minor spelling corrections were made to provide clarity; otherwise, respondent comments are reported verbatim:
All faculty salaries should be reviewed frequently and raised as necessary in line with market.
Number of years at KSU.
Offer a fair starting wage, and give cost-of-living increases annually.
Chairs need to establish a protocol of review.
Equalize pay according to MERIT where accomplishments and contributions can be clearly seen through documentation.
Increase the other faculty salary as needed.
Regulating the process; upgrading the rates of longer term serving faculty.
Make sure that current faculty salaries reach market standards (e.g., current CUPA standards), and that they stay current with cost of living. Faculty should at the very least receive cost of living increases, and those who go above and beyond should be able to receive merit increases, which are part of KSU's policies but are only received by a few. Raises should be based on merit and cost of living, and not on cronyism. In the past we have been told that we are to receive raises, and then nothing comes through. We have been told that tenure and promotion are suspended, but at the same time seen several members of administration and two faculty members receive substantial salary increases. I personally am hoping to see change, but I have been here for some time and have instead seen faculty salaries fall farther and farther below market level. Salary equity is crucial, especially when we are not allowed to hire people into vacancies, and our classes get overloaded and we teach multiple overloads. The longer this continues, the lower our morale, and we lose many very fine colleagues who leave because of these issues.
I think that a tenure track should be an option for new faculty which does compensate to a certain degree.
Prioritize salary equity.
For new faculty hires, why not pay according to qualifications to begin with?
I am fine to offer higher salary based on merit and negotiation to the competitive faculty. However, there also needs to be fair evaluation of the faculty who have been in KSU for long time. Faculty who have been serving here for long time and are productive, their salary should be raised at the standard CUPA level. It is unfortunate to see salaries of some associate faculty who are productive less than assistant professor in the same discipline.