Faculty Affairs Committee Meeting
May 7, 2007
Present: S. Starkovich, A. Leon-Guerrero, R. Kaufman, W. Shore, M. Ellard-Ivey, R. Byrnes
Guest: P. Killen
Business:
1. Steve distributed the salary survey report for 2006 – 07 with numbers compiled from the 06 – 07 Academe. Steve noted that Willamette was not included. He also noted that we’ve gained three point at the ranks of full and associate professor; we’ve made no progress at the assistant level. (We were 18, 14, and 12; now we’re 14.7, 11.1, and 11.8.) He thinks next year should be much better. We need to think of this as two years into a five-year plan.
2. Steve and Ron reported back on the their meeting with Academic Affairs Committee of the Board of Regents. Patricia said that the committee is fully behind a multi-year plan. They have promised that $100 million of the $150 million capital campaign is for academics. The AA committee did give feedback on “nondiscriminatory,” interpreting it the same way that Norris Peterson had at the Faculty Assembly Meeting last semester.
3. Wendy present her analysis of the gender and race differences in salaries. The average salaries have been corrected for years in rank. Patricia asked what kind of data we would really need to probe the gender differences. Wendy said that we need to do the same analysis with the 07 – 08 data to see if the problems have been alleviated at all. We also need to look into the effect of credit for years of teaching at other schools. Wendy noted that AAUP data shows that, nationally, women make 95% of what men make in the academy, so we shouldn’t be so surprised to find that that’s true here. We talked about the equity adjustments and how we didn’t know how they were used. Patricia reminded us that we can make recommendations even though it’s not in our charge. Patricia also said that it wouldn’t be a bad thing to present the data to the deans and/or the whole faculty. We need to think about how and when we want to distribute it. We agreed that the data should go to Loren, Sheri, and Teri Phillips first. Patricia suggested that we set up a meeting with those three. Wendy agreed to look at data for division and school, and Patricia agreed to get the data on years credited at hire. We will have to wait until to summer to receiver the 07 – 08 data.
4. Patricia asked us to think about three big issues: 1) the nature of graduate faculty; 2) the requests of some faculty in the professional schools to think about the contract year in a different way; 3) how permanent reduced loads should affect access to equipment and space. We didn’t get very far in this conversation. Patricia said she would send a memo. We decided we would try to set up another meeting with her.
Meeting adjourned at 1:34 p.m.
Respectfully submitted,
Rona Kaufman
FAC Secretary
Possible next meeting: May 23rd from 12:00 – 4:00 in the Faculty House Conference Room.