Spring 2007 Newsletter > University
News > Senate
View From the Senate
Timothy Sullivan (Economics)
Chair of the University Senate
The
University Senate recently concluded its regular schedule of meetings
for the 2006-2007 academic year, but, as is always the case, the
business and the concerns of the University community and thus the
University Senate are never really brought to a close. As a
long-serving member of the Senate and its current Chair, I am aware that
there are many among us who are frustrated with the deliberate pace of
the Senate. While this criticism is not without merit, I would also
point out that these deliberations are a valuable process, which
considers both the intended and unintended consequences that policies
might have upon such a diverse and dynamic community as Towson
University.
Among the most
controversial issues that any large academic institution must address is
the development of an efficient and equitable scheme to identify both
the workload and compensation for its faculty, staff, and
administrators. Needless to say, this may be particularly problematic
for all of us since the University is growing significantly and evolving
into a more complex institution. The challenge, of course, is how we
accommodate these changes while maintaining the characteristics and
values that we value so highly.
The fact that
salaries vary both between and within academic units of the University
is probably understandable, but the exact reasons why one particular
person’s salary varies relative to another person’s salary may be far
less clear. The Senate has discussed and begun taking initial steps to
examine the basis for the distribution of merit along with some
long-term goals of correcting various inequities that exist across and
within various departments on our campus. In some cases, faculty are
hired in different years under different initial conditions and, as
such, significant salary compression issues have emerged within some
departments. In other cases, long-serving faculty have gone through
various phases of prosperous versus lean budget years and thus the
amount of resources available for cost-of-living adjustments (COLA) and
merit increases also shows considerable variation. So there are both
short-term and long-term factors that have resulted in significant
salary differences, which may be both somewhat inefficient as well as
inequitable.
As Senate Chair and
a concerned faculty member, I think it is important to resolve some
basic issues regarding salaries and adjustments to salaries. It is
helpful to consider COLA as a separate issue from discussions of merit
and / or long-term salary inequities. It would also be helpful if the
dollars allocated to COLA actually reflected the cost of living for all
faculty, but since this percentage is typically decided by the system
(which the University could, I suppose, augment if ensuring an adequate
cost-of-living adjustment was deemed appropriate by the University to do
for the faculty), this increment is typically taken as a fixed
percentage. By maintaining the relative economic status of the faculty
and staff of the University, it would prevent the often overwhelming
temptation to raid other resources and maintain them for the more
appropriately determined recognition and reward of the meritorious
activities of the University’s faculty and staff. Moreover, resources
allocated to merit increases ought not reflect the relative market
conditions of any particular department, but, rather, should acknowledge
the good work and contributions of the faculty and staff toward the
mission of the University. Accordingly, using a measure other than the
departmental salary base would provide some level of protection of merit
dollars to those who happen to be located in areas where conditions
conspire against them in any particular fiscal year or receive merit
rewards when their base salary may have stagnated due to state-wide
fiscal constraints.
Assuming that there
are sufficient budgetary resources to sustain the relative economic
status of its employees and that merit increases begin to be allocated
on a more equitable basis, we are still left with some long-term
compression issues. This requires the commitment of resources over
several budget cycles, thus making it vulnerable to the inevitable ups
and downs of public budgets on which the University has no impact. The
University will likely never have such an over-abundance of resources
that we can fully fund all of the many valued initiatives that we as a
community strive to achieve. As an academic community we need to
recognize that there are serious issues for us to address and that some
of these issues will require us to be both persistent and vigilant.
Even though the
University’s budget for the current fiscal year and its projected budget
for next fiscal year are, by historical standards, good years, there is
insufficient funding to fully address all of the needs of the
institution or to completely address all inequities that exist in the
salary structure of the University’s faculty and staff. Of course that
doesn’t mean we shouldn’t try. By taking the first steps towards a more
efficient and equitable salary system, I believe that the University
will collectively be better positioned to maintain its current areas of
strength and to move more confidently toward its future.
