Faculty Compensation Committee

Academic Year 2022-2023

Members: 1) Devon Hanahan (Hispanic Studies), 2) Deborah McGee (Communication), 3) Richard Kilpatrick (Accounting and Legal Studies), 4) Khris Ghosh (Computer Science), 5) Carlos Lavin (Teacher Education), 6) Susan Klein (Studio Art)

Chair and recorder of minutes: 7) Jennifer Baker (Philosophy) (with assistance from previous chair Devon Hanahan (Hispanic Studies))

The committee had regular meetings seven times in 2022-2023: August 13th, October 11th (guest speaker Laura Turner on adjunct pay for graduate courses), November 15th, February 13th, March 23rd (guest speaker Bob Pitts from the Budget committee), April 10th (guest speaker Tom Carroll from Faculty Welfare), May 1st.

According to the Faculty/Administration Manual, Article V, Section 3.B.18, the Compensation Committee is  

1) responsible for reviewing and recommending changes as needed to College Policies concerning faculty and adjunct faculty compensation.

And 2) conducts or recommends faculty salary and/or compensation studies and reports the results to the faculty, recommending measures taken in response to findings of said studies.

  1. Reviewing and Recommending Changes as Needed to College Policies Concerning Faculty Compensation

The first focus of the committee this year was a concern brought to us by adjunct teaching faculty in graduate programs over a per head reduction in pay (from $450 to $400), explained to program directors as a way to match the new $400 per head pay for adjuncts teaching undergraduates. This would have been a substantial (from the expected fully enrolled rate of $3600 to $2400 per class) pay cut, announced only in late August, giving graduate adjuncts no time to look for work they could afford. This was also after substantial investments in the time it took to redesign courses to be asynchronous.

The committee put this issue on the Faculty Advisory Committee to the President and asked William Veal to speak to administration over the issue. The pay cut was removed and described as a mistake.

Further action: FCC supplied a committee member to the Adjunct Oversight Committee. Susan Klein volunteered.

Recommendation for 2023-2024 committee: FCC committee continue to keep track of adjunct compensation.

The second focus of the committee was to review its history and raisons d'être. Its documents and previous minutes and reports are kept on a Microsoft Teams site which will be shared with the future committee. We began in a position that the committee had not been in prior, as President Hsu had prioritized the main agenda item from previous years: for CofC faculty salaries to reach those of peer schools, as determined by CUPA data. (College of Charleston faculty salaries will meet or exceed the mean salaries of the CUPA-HR salary peers institutionally and at each rank. The College will make every effort to achieve this goal by September 2018.  The Compensation Committee, in cooperation with all relevant administrative offices, will assess the progress being made in its annual report each spring to the Senate.- Faculty Senate Resolution from April 2016.)

Raises have been scheduled to meet this long-defended goal of the FCC, and faculty have received two sets of 3% raises (one at 3% even though the state offered to fund only 2.5%) and some received 1% merit raises in addition. Faculty salaries come from the E&G (education and general) fund. (See last year’s report: https://controller.cofc.edu/documents/financial-reports/annual-report-2022.pdf)

The most recent comparative data on salary we have is from 2019, fall, from the Office of Institutional Research. College of Charleston’s average salary for all ranks: 79,414.

For instructors: 59,285.

For assistant professors: 68,918.

For associate professors: 77,411.

For professors: 97,508.

For all ranks we have a higher average than Appalachian State and UNC-Wilmington, University of Mary Washington. We have a lower average, for all ranks, than Elon University, University of Tampa, James Madison, College of William and Mary (102,783), Miami University-Oxford (89,131), University of New Hampshire (100,436), and Boston College (140,395).

Ongoing: Faculty raises do not meet the rise in cost of living (COL), which is an 8.7% increase this year. In “real terms” salaries for faculty at the College of Charleston have decreased. The 2023 AAUP report suggests that across the board, salaries for full-time faculty members decreased 2.4 percent, “the third consecutive year that wage growth has fallen short of inflation.”[1]The AAUP report for 2023 also suggests that the College’s raises do not match the average increase in salaries for full-time faculty members this year, which is a 4.5 percent increase in public institution.

Recommendation for 2023-2024 committee: The FCC continue to track and report on COL issues and continue to hold one meeting with the chair of the Budget committee.

Ongoing: Though the committee tried, we were not able to access CUPA data from the College for this year. The CUPA-HR survey collects data on full-time faculty by instructional program, tenure type, and rank.

The third issue on which we focused was the recommendation that the College of Charleston design a compensation guide like that in use at Clemson University, which explains their compensation philosophy and policies. https://media.clemson.edu/humanres/Compensation_docs/Compensation_Guidelines.pdf

We studied the guide, asked about creating one for the College, and were told it was not a viable option for the College of Charleston.

Recommendation for 2023-2024 committee: The FCC attempt to assess what is lost due to this.

The fourth issue on which we focused was the possibility of a meaningful tuition benefit to faculty dependents. We studied the SC Department of Administration’s Division of State Human Resources Tuition Assistance Guidelines and the free tuition policy for those 60 years or older.

We looked to the scholarship currently available to dependents, which requires a minimum 3.0 GPA and preference to applicants with financial need as established by FAFSA. This scholarship is non-renewable, but students may reapply each year. It can be as much as 2,000 a year, 1,000 each semester. We could not find the application form online (see https://finaid.cofc.edu/types-of-financial-aid/scholarships/specialty/parents/download-forms/index.php) and the webpage with information about this scholarship is out of date.

Recommendation for 2023-2024 committee: FCC Committee survey faculty for awareness and satisfaction with this scholarship.

We reviewed the current scholarship on offer and consulted with other SC Universities, studying the means by which Coastal Carolina provides this benefit through Foundation funds.

We also determined which our peer institutions provided this benefit and shared this data with the President.

Our peer institutions that offer meaningful tuition benefits to faculty dependents currently: Boston College. After 5 years of fulltime employment, if the dependent is admitted, offer full tuition support: https://www.bc.edu/content/bc-web/offices/human-resources/sites/employee-handbook/benefits.html#tuition

University of Miami (Ohio) offer the full benefit. Includes dependents of the deceased. https://miamioh.edu/policy-library/employees/compensation-benefits/fee-waivers.html

University of New Hampshire: The spouse and dependent children of status employees may enroll in any of the regular credit courses offered by USNH at one-half of the current in-state tuition rate.

University of Tampa: 75% tuition discount for dependent family members. (Also, free parking was noted.)

Elon University: employees teaching 24 credit hours per academic year who have also been working at Elon for 5 years receive full tuition remission for dependents and a tuition exchange program: https://eloncdn.blob.core.windows.net/eu3/sites/661/2017/12/2009-Tuition-Remission-and-Tuition-Exchange.pdf

Recommended: FCC continue to pursue information about this benefit in consultation with the administration.

William and Mary’s request for a full dependent tuition benefit: https://www.wm.edu/sites/facultyassembly/documents/reports_resolutions_current/priority_letters_22-23/priority_letter_tuition_remission.pdf

The fifth issue on which the committee focused was the state of the College’s budget. From Bon Pitts we learned that the College’s budget is in a good state and that the budget process is much improved now, due to the current provost and CFO. The CFO thinks through the budget well, planning for reserves, even given the contingencies, such as numbers enrolled. The new VP for Enrollment will help better pin down the role of enrollment in improving the budget.

  1. The FCC Conducts or Recommends Faculty Salary and/or Compensation Studies

The sixth issue on which the committee focused was on a redesign of surveys done by the FCC.

We determined to survey chairs on whether faculty were leaving for reasons for salary and if positions were rejected due to salary. We will also ask about compression as an issue. This will be done informally over the summer.

We studied other surveys done on educators or by universities on cost of living and compensation. We determined, in order to understand the overall impact of our salaries and benefits along with the COL in Charleston to gather comparative data and fine-grained information on housing costs and other obstacles to well-being. We also wanted to solicit suggestions from faculty. We designed a survey with the assistance of a representative from the FWC and submitted some of our questions for use on the Great Colleges to Work for survey. The FCC survey will be finalized over the summer and distributed in the fall.

List of actions taken:

  • Devon Hanahan addressed the Faculty Senate over FCC issues, inviting feedback on current initiatives.
  • Supplied a committee member to the Adjunct Oversight Committee. Susan Klein volunteered.
  • Heard from Bob Pitts about College budget processes and status.
  • Requested new CUPA data from the College.
  • Submitted and had accepted questions to “Great Colleges to Work For” survey.
  • Asked President if capturing interest in dependent tuition benefit would be helpful.
  • Invited member of the Faculty Welfare Committee (FWC) for a discussion of the survey.
  • Designed survey for faculty on COL, pay, benefits, and compression.
  • Determined fall release of survey and reminder from Speaker.
  • Held meeting with new members in May, election of chair and secretary still pending.

Ongoing questions:

Will CofC work with a lobbyist?

Which HR benefits are significant to faculty?

What legal or structural obstacles are there to a) improving adjunct pay, b) addressing compression, c) supplying a tuition benefit to faculty offspring?

Are our rates of faculty retention concerning and related to compensation?

How can the College be improved through benefits and compensation to faculty?

What does the most recent CUPA-HR data indicate?

[1] AAUP Preliminary Report, 2023 https://www.aaup.org/news/faculty-real-wages-decrease-again#.ZFUORezMJ24