Faculty Salaries

Presented February 20, 1998; Passed March 20, 1998

The Faculty Senate Work/Environment Committee recognizes the following state of affairs regarding USM faculty salaries:

1. USM faculty salaries have failed to keep pace with regional benchmarks, notably those of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB) and the Southern Universities Group (SUG);
2. Based on 1996-97 data compiled by Mississippi's Board of Trustees of the State Institutions of Higher Learning, USM faculty salaries are:
   • 9.40% below the SREB average for Professor
   • 6.18% below the SREB average for Associate Professor
   • 5.25% below the SREB average for Assistant Professor, and
   • 2.76% below the SREB average for Instructor
3. Based on 1996-97 data compiled by USM Institutional Planning and Analysis, only 12 of the 58 disciplines at USM showed higher average faculty salaries by rank (3 at rank of Professor, 7 at rank of Associate Professor, 2 at rank of Assistant Professor) than the average salaries by rank in comparable disciplines of SUG institutions;
4. USM faculty have gone without raises for four and a half of the past 10 years and projected 3% raises in 1998-99 and 1999-2000 likely will fail to keep pace with inflation; and,
5. Salary and benefits are an essential component in the retention and recruitment of an effective, productive, and high quality faculty;

Therefore, the Faculty Senate urgently recommends that [1] the University Administration give fiscal priority to raising salaries of USM faculty at all ranks to the average salary of the SREB and/or SUG benchmarks within a two-year period and [2] the University President report annually to the Faculty Senate regarding the University's progress in achieving this priority.

Last Modified: November 12, 2007 8:25 AM
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