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UO faculty leaving over low salaries, President reports

7/19/2013: And more from Lariviere, on the need for additional faculty raises – written *after* he implemented the equity raises that helped get him fired:

Frankly, the single most important action the UO could take to ensure its long-term success is to finish the faculty salary equity project during FY12 and implement as rapidly as possible a more conventional and predictable merit increase process.

Average pay at UO for assistants and associates *fell* last year. We’re now into FY14. See here for data on how far you are behind our comparators. President Gottfredson’s response to the union’s wage proposal is due next week. Bargaining starts at 11 on Monday, and at 9 on Tu and Wed. Be there, important shared governance proposals will also be on the table.

7/18/2013: From an interview with the Daily Emerald:

The policies that we’ve had visited on us in the last two years basically have resulted in no salary increases for faculty or officers of administration. … We were losing faculty here for the first time in quite a while, in significant numbers — 12 really good faculty. We always have more turnover than that every year, but these were 12 people who were lured away by outside offers. These weren’t people who left because of their families or they didn’t get tenure or some other, these are people that we wanted to keep, somebody else wanted to hire and we lost them. And that’s a big number in that category. We said, “Look, you get an outside offer, we’ll match it.” But their response to that is, “Well, what have you been doing for the last 10 years that put me in this position where I’m so poorly paid that I can get such a big salary increase by going to another university?” That’s a hard question to answer if you’ve not given salary increases. 

Oh wait, never mind. That was President Lariviere, 2 years ago. The new mantra, chanted by Journalism Dean Tim Gleason and VPAA Doug Blandy in the union bargaining sessions, is that when UO faculty leave it is for non-economic reasons. What does President Gottfredson think? Who knows, he doesn’t give interviews.

24 Comments

  1. Anonymous 07/19/2013

    Very convenient when you’re trying to hold down salary increases. Who knows what people actually tell them about why they leave? And do people tell the truth? Kind of crass for an academic to admit to leaving for more dough.

    And Lariviere’s 9% salary jump for full professors probably did alleviate the salary problem, temporarily; and salaries for lower ranks HAVE become more competitive.

    But UO usually has had disdain for faculty and the culture has been one of low-balling for decades. And now with the economy in bad trouble, and the professorial profession seen as in some jeopardy, they probably think they can get away with more of the same.

    But of course, being important administrators, the ones who really do things around here — their own salaries must be market level, nothing less!

  2. Anonymous 07/19/2013

    Dog says

    I would really like to see actual DATA on which faculty have left via the non-retirement channel over the last 5 years.

    and what 9% salary bump do you refer to? I never got one of those – although I am just a dog.

  3. Anonymous 07/19/2013

    9% raise for full professors in May 2011 — remember, it got Lariviere fired?

    • Anonymous 07/19/2013

      And still left us at the bottom of the AAU.

    • Anonymous 07/19/2013

      Dog says

      Yes I remember the raise but it was not administered as
      9% ATB for full professors. All of this was discussed
      a couple of years ago on this blog.

  4. Anonymous 07/19/2013

    Are we really not at or near the bottom of the AAU academically?

    And who really believes that any of our “comparators” in the OUS comparisons are really still our competitors?

    Michigan? LOL!
    Virginia, Iowa, Indiana, UCSB, Colorado, North Carolina, UW?

    I’m afraid we’ve slipped so much that our salaries are not that far from where they belong.

    • Anonymous 07/19/2013

      Dog Says

      when discussing AAU membership, there are various rubrics that apply. Statements like “near the bottom of the AAU academically” are based on perception and not
      actual measurements with respect to a rubric (like TTF to student ratio).

      We are however, at the bottom of the AAU in terms of

      a) percentage of students that are graduate students
      b) percentage of all degrees granted that are PHD

  5. Anonymous 07/19/2013

    These “metrics” don’t impress me nearly as much as something like “how many engineering departments in the top 5.”

    engineering departments? Top 5? Oregon? LOL!

  6. Anonymous 07/19/2013

    If any more proof of UO decline needed — was looking for new science book by well-known author.

    Not in UO Library — so went to Summit catalog — ordered it from Mt. Hood Community College!

    • Anonymous 07/19/2013

      From http://accreditation.uoregon.edu/sites/accreditation.uoregon.edu/files/Y3report_UO_finalwCovr.pdf

      7. Despite the extensive use of interlibrary loan, Standard 5 requires a core collection
      adequate in quality, depth, diversity and currency to support graduate curricula and
      research in a number of programs. The Committee recommends that the University
      take steps to address the sufficiency of core library holdings needed to support the
      institution’s instructional and research missions (Standard 5.A.1; 5.A.2).

    • Hedgehog/Fox 07/20/2013

      Don’t get me started! The UO library’s decision to give up on books makes my own research/scholarship life pretty miserable. By far, most of the books I need are not owned by our library–and they are major works in my field. They are, however, available–often–from the libraries of small summit schools.

      It’s nice that the Knight Library has all those cool new spaces and projects, though–unless books happen to be required for a major part of your work.

    • Anonymous 07/20/2013

      So, you may not get core materials, but check out Knight Library’s new popular reading collection and space. The most recent, expensive, and ill-fated attempt to compete with the public library.

    • Oryx 07/20/2013

      I think the popular reading collection is a good idea, and given the vastly lower cost of popular books compared to academic books and journals (at least in the sciences) I strongly doubt its expense is of any consequence at all to the discussion above about library resources.

    • Anonymous 07/22/2013

      You can ask a subject specialist to purchase books, you know. If you’re a student, you could ask a reference librarian how to request a book be bought. If something is a major work in your field, and you think we should own it, communicate it to the library!

  7. Anonymous 07/20/2013

    ILL saves me from wasting time in the library.

    • Anonymous 07/20/2013

      Until the fines hit–which is what happens when you need to hold on to a volume for a while. When that happens, you waste time and money. It’s tough paying fines for doing your research. Does something to morale. You can shake it off, though.

      And, by the way, you can have the library ship its books directly to your department. It’s a great service. No “wasted time” in the library at at all.

  8. Awesome0 07/20/2013

    Sounds like a chicken and egg problem. Pay shit and you end up with…(can I insert a second cuss word?)

    • Anonymous 07/20/2013

      …duck soup?

  9. Daffy Duck 07/20/2013

    Yes, we are woefully behind in many academic areas, but of 21 UO academic programs evaluated in the most recent NRC report, 11 are ranked at or above the AAU median in research, including a number outside the sciences. In the early 90’s NRC, the ratio was much lower than 11/21, with almost none outside the sciences. Sorry to be upbeat, but I woke up in a good mood today.

  10. Anonymous 07/21/2013

    Daffy, do you have a link to this info?

    It just sounds implausible — it would seem to imply that UO is at or above the median academic level of AAU — I find that hard to believe. Very hard to believe.

    If UO can really be in the middle of AAU academically and pay the lowest salaries, then that is quite phenomenal, it should be in the headlines!

    But would be interested to see the evidence for what you say.

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