lovell report

Salary Inversion and Compression Within Departments at the University of Washington

The Office of Institutional Studies kindly provided a table of 2004 salary compensation by rank and department of all state-supported faculty[1] at the UW’s three campuses. A colleague and I conducted a preliminary analysis of these data to estimate the extent of salary compression and inversion within departments.

Discussion of salary compression and inversion is based on the premise that, exceptional cases aside, meritorious faculty at the rank of professor or associate professor should be paid more than lower-ranked faculty.

Methods. Substantial differences in pay scales between university departments may occur because of market forces, the reputation of a department in comparison to its counterparts at other universities, or other factors.

· For this reason, our analysis compares salaries within rather than between departments.

In exceptional cases, because of outstanding merit or other considerations, particular faculty members who have not been promoted to the next rank may be paid substantially more than others of the same rank in the same department.

· For this reason, we defined compression and inversion in relation to the median salary of faculty at a lower rank, rather than the top salary.

· To increase the chance that each rank would have more than one (perhaps exceptional) member, we applied our analysis only to departments with more than 10 ranked faculty.

· There were 64 out of 120 departments that met this threshold, comprising 1498 out of 1828 ranked faculty. Our summary covers only this group of departments and faculty.

Salary Inversion. Individual faculty members were classified as inverted in salary if they were paid less than the median pay of the next lower rank in the same department.

· Of 64 departments included in this analysis, there were 44 (69%) with at least one full or associate professor with an inverted salary (Figure 1).

· Of 1172 regular teaching faculty at the associate or full professor ranks, there were 138 (12%) with inverted salaries, including 26 full professors classified with severely inverted pay, i.e., less than the median of assistant professors in the same department (Figure 2).

Salary Compression. Applying the standard minimum pay increase for a promotion in rank, faculty members were classified as compressed in salary if they were paid less than 7.5% above the median pay of the next lower rank in the same department.

· Of 64 departments, there were 59 (92%) with at least one associate or full professor paid a compressed salary (Figure 1).

· Of 1172 regular teaching faculty at the associate or full professor ranks in the 64 departments, there were 279 (24%) with compressed salaries (Figure 2). Of faculty with compressed salaries, there were 239 (86%) whose 9/10-month compensation rates were compressed by more than $1000 (Figure 3).

· For 113 full professors with compressed salaries, the total amount that would have been required in 2004 to raise their salaries to 7.5% above the median of associate professors in their departments was $1,090,755.

· For 166 associate professors with compressed salaries, the total amount that would have been required in 2004 to raise their salaries to 7.5% above the median of assistant professors in their departments was $1,210,697.

Caveats. In an attempt to mitigate the influence of exceptional cases, this analysis uses the median pay of lower-ranked faculty as a standard of compression and inversion; it therefore excludes 60 smaller departments, including 330 ranked faculty (250 at the rank of associate or full professor). No attempt is made here to account for circumstances that might explain salary compression and inversion.

Summary. The results indicate that salary compression or inversion occurs in almost all departments with more than 10 ranked faculty, affecting about a quarter of the associate and full professors.

*Departments with >10 ranked faculty, regular teaching appointments ³ 50%: 64/120 departments.

*Departments with >10 ranked faculty, regular teaching appointments ³ 50%: 1172/1422 associate or full professors.

[1] Includes only faculty with regular teaching appointments comprising at least 50% of their salary. Research, clinical, and adjunct faculty are excluded. Regardless of type of appointment, the 9/10 month salary rate was used.