Sept. 15,2016: AAUP Fall Party and CHAPTER meeting: Setting an Agenda

President (designated nominee) introduced the meeting, asked for vote on the offices of the AAUP. Ballots were distributed to about 25 people. Marjorie Murphy ran against Paul Rablen for president and asked people to nominate others. Judy Vogt took the ballot box and will report the results of the election.

Raised previous issues:

-Bob Weinberg gave a report on the Child Care committee, we can expect a report on progress at the Faculty meeting and more possibilities to come.

– Marjorie Murphy will be giving a lecture on faculty governance on November 9 at Faculty lunch.

– faculty salary: we have had several reports on faculty salaries.

The discussion over salaries began with a report to gather information about who was affected and why it happened.

1. X: Caveat that faculty member not on committee that settled this, so ensuing discussion has misconceptions. What did we hear was the reason for faculty salary q? Because it became known that people were staying at asssoc level longer because raises there were higher. That was initial motivator for the conversations about salary and spending rules.

2 conversation groups convened by Connie as acting president. Peter Collins was on one – endowment spending, the other faculty salary. No initial written reports generated, just given to Connie.

Y: Initial motivation was not what you said — there’s a cohort of faculty members — current junior and more senior assoc. profs. Noticed traj of salaries lower than expected. If you look at plot of salary vs seniority, find that you’re below where you’d expect. You’re 6 years into full, and still at 10th percentile. That was the motivation. This arose as unintended consequence of folks staying at assoc longer than normal. Bottom line is everyone gets hurt when someone stays in assoc longer b/c raises avg in assoc while lowering avg in full, so both salary pools get lower raises than would be otherwise.

So really just about original motivation. “punishing” late people didn’t start out that way.

Q: What is normal time in assoc?

X: 8 years.

B: 41 is folks in full professor rank. I don’t get it cause I’m in 41 and I’m below average. Long-serving associates should have thereby elevated median of full professors, so I don’t understand how this arises.

 

X: I can explain some. Some faculty are being “overpaid”, Some “underpaid”. First group includes a) people who stayed in assoc > 8 years, and b) people who did not stay longer than 8. In the group that is underpaid, it is also the case that there are both kinds of people. Neither group is just promoted at 8 or not.

As we know, when salary adjustment comes out it’s a guess based upon info from last year. And last year we also made a guess. Continual adjustment.

The discussion moved on to the issues of percentages of wage increases, you can still have a low salary but if your percentage of increase was large then you were targeted.

People who are overpaid are overwhelmingily folks who have been full for a long time. Underpaid have been in full for less paid.

B: I look at the numbers I am underpaid, the percentage of my raises over the years is less than the average salary increases. So if there were a raise of 6% at any one time it could be on a salary far below the average wage in that ranked group.

X: Here’s how it could happen: not taken into account is what your starting salary was. That is an overwhelming factor in entire discussion. All this does is look at raises. You could be paid 1/2 of colleague’s salaries, but get higher raises, and that would require a collection.

C: If you taught 3 years at other institutions college doesn’t give you discounts that three year experience compared to someone who taught the first three years at Swarthmore so their starting salary would be greater, you would continue to earn less than they do over the years.

D: Don’t need to depend upon administration for salary info. We could all agree to disclose. Public institutions do. Issues: anonymous vs identified. Can put info in trust to be revealed when % of faculty discloses, to not punish early reveal. We debated this issue for a while.

Y: I have seen fishiness. Cross-comparison at different places. In the data – faculty salary reported to board was higher than other institutions. It’s because they took figure for total compensation — including lab instructors — and divided by # of regular full-time faculty. It was incompetence but this is a transparency issue. If dishonest or incompetent, no way of knowing.

Z: Business of % raises, somehow Rich figured out the pool, but I don’t know how.

B: Would be reassuring to have list of salaries in rank order of all ranks. I’m 19th most senior, my speculation is that based upon numbers that I’m 30th. DOn’t know why. If we had a list, it would help.

E: Don’t know what other people are making.

B: Are there other explanations, like off-scale pay?

F: One of the factors that seems to be involved is folks who taught elsewhere. Some got low-balled when they came. When you calculate seniority, have to count all years of seniority post PhD. Also, whatever they did to screw up assoc rank folks, shouldn’t be taken out of hides of senior faculty. Don’t take money away to remedy situation.

Again the discussion shifted to how the 41 faculty were singled out; we discussed the many ways of calculating the distribution of wages.

E: I am baffled about this. It’s however clear that what happened last year that they decided to fix this by somehow — a miracle occurs — making it our problem. It’s the part where they retroactively decide that we didn’t deserve that money. It’s an illogical step in any case. The college doesn’t save that much money by taking this step.

Z: It’s great that they picked on is, we are in strongest postion to fight — fight for everybody. That’s the problem of them picking on 41 senior faculty.

L: One issue is the normative model for how pay is distributed. IT’s based on our mean being 102.5% of mean of respective tiers. Concern is that whatever reason discrepancies occur. Inequality happens. Off-scale departments, long serving people, whatever. Ancillary problems. Other ways to calculate that don’t create zero-sum issue. Using median instead of mean. Would not have drastic effects on whole tier. One problem is not really knowing what full distribution looks like.

B: I thought there was a committee that was addressing whether comparison group policy was appropriate. THis throws off comparison.

L: The salary committee made 4 main recommendations; one was changing peer group to accurately reflect distribution of departments. We also have large CS which has been hiring a lot recently, more than doubled in 10 years. Many fulltime, not all tenure track. Really hurts junior and lower assoc. But it’s all related. This creates zero-sum situations. Committee came up with solutions to many problems. Rich created an algorithm that would even out the distribution, but the 41 was not his idea, it was not the idea of the faculty on the committee.

E: This was a conversation, not a committee. Tom cherry-picked the solution that would cost us and not him.

L: Tom or board?

E: Tom doing the board work.

Y: he didn’t have to ask permission.

MZ: Ad-hoc committee, not conversation. I raised ad-hoc committees as issue. We have more these days. How do we turn their output into policy of college? Governance!

B: Still want to see the list of salaries.

We then began to discuss Swarthmore senior faculty wages in comparison with others, many faculty could not understand why the letters set such a disparaging tone.

F: I am glad this is happening, thanks. Have to go, but there’s one more issue. I also believe that over time the salaries at which people retire is worth less in real dollars. People who retire here will never make what people 5-10 years behind make. This is shameful.

E: Retirement accounts?

F: Salaries in inflation-adjusted dollars.

B: I am making less than people in Philosophy at comparable institutions.

F: Once someone retires their numbers fall off the grid.

B: Swarthmore underpays relative to comparison schools.

Q: Raises didn’t go up as much as cost of living?

F: I guess, that. It’s a problem.

Z: Did X finish?

X: No. What is the cost that the college is recouping by adjusting raises of 41 people. It was a few thousand dollars average per person over 41 people. If it’s $2k x 41 = $82k. If it’s $4k x 41 ~ $160. Whole mess is about $100k. Just don’t understand why it’s worth any kind of discussion. College has many many $100k.

E: Kind of goes back to governance. Place of faculty in administration/board. In old days: “why does board care what faculty thinks”? They don’t want alumni sitting telling the board they are making mistakes.

Why they care about what we think. Their respect for us was responded to by our respect for institution.

My take is they no longer care. They were willing to piss off and insult 41 senior faculty members because they don’t care.

We might not be able to change this, but we can let them know we have noticed.

Letter sticks in my brain. Every letter says “this raise reflects the respect we have for you”, but this letter was *opposite*. We thought you were great in the past, but we were wrong, you’re not that good.

G: second year that I’ve gotten a letter that said we’ve taken money from senior people and given to you.

X: They decided folks who were highest salaries were making too much money. (Top 15 maybe?) They took 1/2% from those people and redistributed to other people. Totally different from 41.

We then went back to the issue of why these faculty members, the idea of dividing faculty off from each others some got wage increases others got the other letter. We discussed tactics. The initial AAUP meeting with Val Smith.

Art: what’s the 41?

X: The 41 are people whose raises exceeded “what they should have”.

Z: It’s raise history, not absolute salary. Important distinction.

F: I think they’ve stopped that because it’s legally actionable.

E: Agree.

B: I agree with E. I thought I was taken seriously. Solidarity, common purpose. Now I feel like an employee. I don’t understand. Administered rather than having a share.

Z: Are you willing to bring your letter to the board reception and wear a “41” button?

Art: 41 people got letter from Tom. But all of us rest got letter from Val.

X: Two letters in the same envelope. What did Val Smith say when the AAUP met with her last spring.

Z: Val said she was unaware of the issue.

X: Val had no answers to our questions. We had a number of issues, for example women’s salaries from this group, because back in the day women were hired at lower salaries. Is there any equity in including senior women when their salaries are already demonstrably lower than senior men. We raised all kinds of issues. She didn’t know about any of this. We knew more factoids than she did.

D: Did you give her time to prep?

X: Yes.

K: Did she know this happened last march when she was president?

Z: There was a lot of denial that it happened, but she promised she was going to look into it. Wanted to see pool, calculations. We asked if she knew about Rich’s calculations. She doesn’t. She made a commitment to get back to us about this. She anticipated our questions, but is used to faculty members coming, complaining, leaving.

We then discussed remedies, can we get back pay? Can we get them to rescind rob Peter to pay Paul strategies. We discussed how important it is for faculty to always question their pay raises.

X: Don’t understand how college can retroactively publish a group of people for the policies the college imposed on this.

Z: Wonder if this is Tom, or just the board?

E: Just to be clear, the recommendation that Rich’s committee was that adjustment should not “rob peter to pay paul”. But the decision got changed, and they did! It was just dumped on us, ignoring the recommendation of the ad-hoc committee.

Z: It’s not clear to me how we proceed at this point.

B: Put it on faculty mtg agenda.

X: Can retroactive adjust!

Z: If ever you’re unhappy, you must go into provost office when you get salary, and protest. And if you don’t do that, then any money they’ve ripped off, you’ll never make up to quote the Provost, “the college does not give back pay.”

X: They can retroactively impose, but we can’t get back pay?

G: When I was in 3rd year, I got a retroactive raise from Jenny. They boosted me to what I would have been. CHanged base, and gave a couple thousand to make up past. So apparently some administrators have made efforts to adjust injustices.

E: It might be true that *Tom* won’t do that, but both Jenny and Connie would.

Z: At recent meeting, decided COFP should put salaries and compensation on the agenda and expect to get reports from Tom and Rich on how faculty pool was designed.

G: and why the “don’t rob Peter to pay Paul” got ignored.

B: We should get Tom to state current policy in public.

H: The board should be confronted with the problems, faculty should attend the Board reception wearing buttons that say 41 and they should see the buttons.

I: very sympathetic to 41, also selfishly part of pool that was “underpaid”. My understanding is that although we get a bump now, no back pay.

Z: I got insufficient raises for the first 9 years, then I got high raises later on. THose apparently put me into the 41. The point is they are constantly fiddling, not transparent. THey have been nickel-and-diming faculty in many ways which are unnecesary and undermiune morale. There should be lines out the provost’s door about raises. If you’re below average, and don’t complain then you can kiss it goodbye.

The discussion came back to long term effects; that the administration seems to think that it can take away salaries at whim, that benefits disappeared in 2009, that faculty need to look at the budget more carefully.

H: Concern of younger faculty. College tuition reimbursement went down from 42 to 40 and never came back. Other take backs on retirement, they are being quietly ripped off.

Z: 8% on healthcare got taken away in 2009. The administration has never embraced the problems of the benefits that were shaved in crisis, then the endowment recovered in 2010 and the faculty stayed behind.

H: At the time, lesser of 2 evils. Now that it’s over, why is it not come back?

Z: and the Endowment totally rebounded.

G: College didn’t suffer at all.

K: Was there really nothing from compensation conversation group in writing? Yes, there was a report. We need to circulate that report.

Q: Report from US senate about universities not spending budget. Swarhtmore was plastered for being the stingiest liberal arts college. Retirement has changed. You have to privately re-allocate. Healtcare is a low flat rate. Here it’s $1000/year to cover.

Z: This is another issue of transparency, the Human Resource office just changes the portfolios faculty can invest in we should ask personnel office for a report whether they get kickbacks.

K: I can tell you we looked at budget more than endowment. Faculty should look at budget. It’s all interconnected — for instance, remember 4-course load. Put it in over 7 years. Will not replace all lost courses. Will pay by increasing enrollment. It turns out that the extra enrollment no longer brings in more cash because students need more. Now have dorms, size increase for no reason at all.

Conclusion: Carr and Marj are going to put together a web page; we will recirculate the Salary Committee Report; Matt Zucker is our Recording Secretary and Marj will send out minutes, and announce a panel on salaries in the fall.