When the Board of Governors that oversees North Carolina’s public universities granted raises recently to 12 chancellors, it prompted faculty across the system to ask: What about us?
There is no doubt that faculty – who’ve gone seven years with just one insignificant raise – are long overdue for a raise.
This year University faculty and other state employees will receive a $750 bonus, but no raise that increases base pay. That $750 equates to $62.50 a month, $14.42 a week, $2.05 a day.
That doesn’t cut it. It’s no wonder North Carolina is losing faculty to other states.1
We need to appreciate the people who teach our children – at every level – and pay them at competitive rates.
The N.C. General Assembly, not the UNC Board of Governors, provides the dollars for raises for University faculty.
And after healthy raises for chancellors, the people who teach our best and brightest should be next.
1“Faculty Retention Efforts, July 2012-June 2014,” UNC General Administration. Of 419 faculty across the UNC system who received competing offers over two budget years, 320 – or 76% – accepted those offers and left. Among those who left, 93 had contracts and grants valued at $91 million.
Rick says
As long as it has been for faculty in North Carolina for a raise, staff have gone even longer. At least faculty have gotten raises. We have had to settle for bonuses, vacation days or nothing at all when faculty received raises those same years. It’s been tough for you but it’s been tougher for us. Remember that when you think of inequalities.
Jacqueline Billeci says
Your math is misleading. You are equating faculty (on a 9 month contract with the option to use other awwho do not have that option. Your numbers are for staff. Faculty would be $83.33 per month, $20.83 per week and $4.17 per day.
MM says
What about staff? The universities do not function with faculty and Chancellors alone. Salaries across all of the UNC campuses are extremely variable and there is no incentive for good staff to stay. It’s a jagged pill to swallow when a job posting for a Financial Aid Assistant Director starts at $38K, while a coordinator at the College of Engineering can make over $50K and our Chancellors make over $400K. It’s no wonder that our staff regularly use the on-campus food pantry because they can’t afford to feed their families on the meager salaries the system gives them. I understand that the different HR departments use the going market rate salaries, but the titles rarely reflect those market rates. In fact, the titles are normally off and actual duties cross over to other areas. Something is wrong here and something needs to change because staff across ALL campuses are losing patience with the continuous slap in the face our legislators give us with shameful bonuses.
Jim O'Gara says
Can we include Adjuncts in there as well? This academic year I will have taught 14 hours (5 classes) in the fall and 9 hours in the spring (4 classes). I will be lucky to break $20,000. That’s INSANE!!! I am working full-time in a job that REQUIRES a minimum of a Masters Degree, but I’m paid less then if I went to work entry level at Walmart.