For salary negotiations: How much money are professors expected to bring in for the university?

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For salary negotiations: How much money are professors expected to bring in for the university?

Steve (guest) 26 Nov 2015 15:46

I am looking to quantify my value to the university during negotiations. A friend of mine who works as a postdoc at a respected academic medical center says it is required there to bring in 120% of salary (presumably this includes salary + 30% benefits).

I was wondering if anyone knew if there were common standards for how much money is expected to be brought in, either at liberal arts departments or academic medical centers. 20% above salary+benefits makes sense to me, and I wanted to see what others had observed.

I recognize that the market will even things out so that salaries will regress to the mean of the market, but this kind of knowledge would provide a valuable piece of information IMHO (if I teach X credit hours which cost $X per credit hour, then I can justify X salary as it is more than 120% of salary+benefits).

AnotherAnon (guest) 27 Nov 2015 18:03

At most schools salary is locked into a relatively small window. Unless you have tons of federal funding or another competing offer in hand you will either "take or leave" the salary that they offer.

One thing you can negotiate is summer salary. This gets included in the startup package very frequently, but it's salary. Say your starting salary is ~$70-80K (the standard window at my school and other private R1s I've seen), then negotiating and extra month of startup is like getting $6K+ for salary that year.

There are lots of things to consider when negotiating salary, though. Rule 1 is that "it can't hurt to ask" so you might as well ask the chair. Then, check to see if your new dept has hired any new faculty in the previous couple of years. They will not want to give you a salary higher than someone who is already there unless there is good reason (federal funding, competing offer). One more thing is that faculty salaries at public institutions are freely available, so if you are a male or White a dept will not want to pay you more than any minority or female faculty member already in the dept because that can be grounds for potential discrimination claims, even if you are brining in grant money and others are not.

where (guest) 27 Nov 2015 20:56

Where are public faculty salaries posted? It's nosey but I am currently negotiating and this is a good idea, @AnotherAnon. I want to try and figure out what is an equitable offer and this may simplify that…

Anon (guest) 27 Nov 2015 23:23

Where: Just google "state university faculty salary" and you'll find them. California posts them via the Sacramento Bee. And I've had no trouble finding all other state universities by googling.

anon (guest) 28 Nov 2015 09:04

They often do not post on the web, as universities try hiding them. They do the minimum requirement by the law. In some places there is one copy in the library that you can only check out for an hour, so you physically need to be on campus.

Steve (guest) 28 Nov 2015 19:04

Hi there, I've listed a few examples of these sites that list salaries. As mentioned by Anon and anon, they often can be Googled, but also can be a bit difficult to find at times. A couple of caveats - one very important factor is the FTE of the position (some newspaper sources do not report this). Also, frequently faculty receive income outside of these reports (e.g., outside consulting, clinical work, other sources that eventually come through the university but are not accounted for on these sites). So, they may be somewhat of an underestimate of total income, but do provide a basis for comparison.

https://ucannualwage.ucop.edu/wage/
http://floridahasarighttoknow.myflorida.com/search_state_payroll
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/databases/public-salaries/

Thank you AnotherAnon for the input on ways to increase salary - I will definitely put this to use. If anyone knows expectations from universities re: percent of salary you need to bring in, I would be very grateful.

anon (guest) 30 Nov 2015 20:08

Being expected to bring in a certain amount of salary is a very AMC way of thinking, universities don't really use the students in class x credit hour price formula the way AMCs (and universities) use something like indirect costs from a grant (and in many settings grants may not be that common) so your question is a little hard to answer. All faculty in a dept are likely to have the same course load (except for adjustments like service releases, grant buyouts, etc.) so I don't really get trying to use teaching load as evidence in support of a higher salary for a standard TT job. Plus, the relationship between student credit hour prices and faculty salary at public vs. private schools likely differs, and a 6-student graduate symposium may be highly valued by the university because the PhD program is valued, whereas a grad student or adjunct can teach the relatively less valued 200 person undergrad class. Maybe I don't understand your question, though, so sorry if this is not useful.

Steve (guest) 01 Dec 2015 21:11

Thank you for this input anon - this is very useful, and perhaps the way of thinking that I mentioned is not commonly used in liberal arts universities during hiring.

I do wonder why this line of thinking isn't used during liberal arts negotiations. One would think that the university budget office would have a financial rationale for why the specific salary is offered - while there is more than the immediate cash flow as a bottom line for each faculty member, surely the rationale for a specific salary offer can't only be that "other universities like us pay this much". Perhaps they obfuscate a bit so that they can keep salaries lower in some cases. Or, perhaps faculty members would not like it because then the university can say that an adjunct who teaches 150 people is a better value (despite in many cases that there are a number of arguments to the contrary).

I suppose I find it frustrating that I may be making the university a ton of money but seeing only a limited proportion of what I bring in, and it's hard to bargain when you don't have an an absolute value of your worth, only a relative one. Even though market prices are set by marginal/relative worth, it's hard to prove your worth above marginal/relative prices without absolute financial metrics to go by.

Assoc_Prof (guest) 01 Dec 2015 21:47

Hi Steve,

There is a flip side to what you state:

In regards to grants, unless you have a grant that you are bringing with you, you will actually be costing the university money until you receive one via the grants support personnel that will be helpful to you in submitting grants, and the facilities/resources you use to generate pilot findings etc.

For teaching, what if students don't like you and enrollment in your courses is low (of course, I doubt this would be the case)?

Also, the cost of insurance and retirement is quite high (when I prepared the budget for my first grants, I was always surprised at these costs, and you can probably assume that the equivalent is at least 25% of salary and LIKELY more for the institution to cover those expenses when hiring).

All this to say, I think that the up front costs of hiring faculty + the hidden costs (e.g., retirement, insurance) and the unknowns (e.g., will you fill the seats?) would not likely add up in your favor should the type of analysis you indicate be the approach used to determine starting salaries. It is much, much better that the internal and external market forces influence salaries.

Steve (guest) 03 Dec 2015 02:39

Thank you for this input, Assoc_Prof - these are very good points.

I do wonder if even when considering these hidden costs, we are still frequently making the university a nice profit and not being compensated accordingly. Consider the situation of a new assistant professor who makes $70k. Assuming fringe benefits are 30%, this means total compensation is $91k. To make the university a 25% profit on your work, this would mean you have to bring in $113,750.

If you are at a public university which charges $250 per credit hour, this means you have to teach about 150 students per year to bring in this level of profit. At a state university this would be covered pretty much by 1 large lecture plus a couple of small-moderate size lectures (i.e., at only a 2-1 teaching load you could cover this, and teaching another class to make it 2-2 would bring in even more profit). At a private university with small enrollments, the much higher per credit hour charges would similarly cover the smaller class sizes.

The upfront costs of hiring and the risk of filling the seats are indeed real (thank you for generously assuming that course enrollment will not be low for me … I will acknowledge that the university takes a significant risk in assuming this will be the case with any applicant :). While I will use grant support resources at first that I have not yet paid for with my own grants, the indirects from other grants can be quite a bit (on a single 2 million dollar grant with 50% indirects, that can buy a lot of grant support staff and resources to share for the university). Perhaps I am just missing something in the calculations, or maybe we are being hosed to some degree.

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