Average Salaries of Faculty and Librarians at Pitt Show Rise in National Rankings

PITTSBURGH—A report prepared by the University of Pittsburgh Office of Institutional Research and released today to Pitt's Faculty Senate Budget Policies Committee shows that the Fiscal Year 2004 average salaries of Pitt instructional faculty have moved up markedly when ranked against those of the other 33 public member-institutions of the prestigious Association of American Universities (AAU).

Titled "Average Salaries of Faculty and Librarians, A Peer Group Analysis, 2003-2004," the report analyzed data made available by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in the March-April 2004 issue of AAUP's Academe. The Pitt study also ranked the FY 2004 average salaries of Pitt professional librarians against those of the other public AAU institutions by using data published in the Association of Research Libraries (ARL) Annual Salary Survey, 2003-2004 and found notable progress there as well.

When FY 2004 average faculty salaries at the 34 public AAU institutions are compared to those of FY 2002, Pitt's ranking rises significantly in each of the categories—for full professors and assistant professors, from 19th in 2002 to 13th in 2004, and for associate professors from 21st in 2002 to 16th in 2004. In other words, Pitt's average faculty salaries, when ranked against the other public AAU institutions, have risen in two years from the bottom half of the rankings to the top half in each of these categories.

When FY 2004 average professional librarians' salaries at the 34 public AAU institutions are compared to those of FY 2002, Pitt's ranking rises from 30th in 2002 to 22nd in 2004.

The AAUP data also revealed that the 4.2 percent average salary raise among continuing, full-time Pitt faculty in FY 2004 was a higher percentage raise than either the 2.6 percent national average raise among public colleges and universities or the 4 percent national average raise among the private institutions.

"I'm delighted to see that we're making progress on our faculty salaries," commented Pitt Provost and Senior Vice Chancellor James V. Maher, "because when we compete for the very best faculty we are competing with the best public and private universities in the country, and it is critical that we succeed in recruiting and retaining the high-quality faculty that are also attractive to those other schools. It's also important to realize that our efforts on faculty salaries are only part of a more comprehensive University of Pittsburgh approach where we are trying to ensure that every Pitt employee is appropriately compensated. We have already succeeded in bringing our staff salaries to rates that are competitive with other employers in Western Pennsylvania, and we are now succeeding in bringing the faculty to competitive rates as well."

###

5/14/04/tmw