You Manage It! 3: Discussion An Academic Question
Mountain States University is a medium-sized public university with 21,000 students and 1,200 faculty members. The College of Business Administration is the largest one on campus, with 8,000 students and 180 faculty members. For the past few years, the dean has had to deal with a large number of dissatisfied faculty members who complain that they are underpaid relative to newly hired faculty. Many of the complainants are senior tenured professors who refuse to engage in committee activities beyond the minimum service requirements and who are seldom in their offices because they feel aggrieved. They teach six hours a week, spend two hours in the office, and then disappear from campus. Recently, the head of the college’s faculty council compiled some statistics and sent these to the dean, demanding “prompt action to create more equity in the faculty pay structure.” The average salary statistics are shown in the table on the following page.
The dean replied that he has little choice but to make offers to new faculty that are competitive with the market and that the university will not give him enough funds to maintain equitable pay differences between new and current faculty or between higher and lower ranks.
Critical Thinking Questions
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10-24. Based on the data collected by the faculty council, name three compensation problems that exist at Mountain States University.
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10-25. Is the dean’s explanation for decreased pay differences by rank and/or seniority justifiable?
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10-26. How would you suggest the dean deal with senior faculty who feel underpaid?
Team Exercise
| 1997 | 2004 | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rank | New Hires | Current | New Hires | Current |
| Full professors | $68,000 | $56,000 | $79,000 | $62,000 |
| Associate professors | $62,000 | $51,000 | $73,000 | $61,000 |
| Assistant professors | $52,000 | $48,000 | $61,000 | $59,000 |
| 2011 | Now | |||
| Rank | New Hires | Current | New Hires | Current |
| Full professors | $99,935 | $76,217 | $120,000 | $85,000 |
| Associate professors | $92,345 | $70,797 | $ 98,000 | $77,000 |
| Assistant professors | $80,644 | $69,443 | $108,000 | $71,000 |
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10-27. A group of six faculty members has come to see the dean to express dissatisfaction with pay compression (reduced pay differentials between lower and higher ranks) at the college. All six represent current faculty; two are assistant professors, two are associate professors, and two are full professors. Students divide into groups of seven and role-play this situation as the dean attempts to deal with the pay complaints raised by the faculty. The dean doesn’t have the money to correct the pay-compression problem, yet he can’t afford to alienate the faculty.
Experiential Exercise: Team
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10-28. One student will role-play a department chair who has just hired a full professor from another institution at a much higher salary than a full professor who has spent 20 years at the university. Another student will role-play the 20-year veteran who will go to the department chair for explanations. Overall, both professors have approximately the same number of publications in journals of similar quality and their teaching ratings are comparable, but over the past two years the professor who was hired from the outside has published a couple of pieces in a top journal whereas the 20-year veteran has not. Role-play will last for approximately 10 minutes. Open class discussion will follow moderated by the instructor.
Experiential Exercise: Individual
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10-29. Interview a number of professors or instructors of your choice and ask them if pay compression is a problem. If so, ask them to give you reasons as to why this happens, the consequences, and suggestions for resolving the problem. Analyze their answers and provide your own recommendations based on the information in this chapter.