SENATE Economic Status of the Faculty
1999-2000 Report of the Senate Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty
January 22, 2001
Contents
Appendix: Salary Guidelines for 1999-2000 availabe on line at www.upenn.edu/almanac/v45/n29/ORsalary.html |
I. Introduction
The Senate Committee on the Economic Status of the Faculty (SCESF) is charged by the "Rules of the Faculty Senate" to:
- Gather and organize data on faculty salaries and benefits,
- Issue an annual report on the economic status of the faculty, and
- Represent the faculty in the determination of University policy on salary issues.
The focus of this report is on the current economic status of the faculty based on salary data. In accordance with the procedures adopted by the Senate Executive Committee in Spring 1999, we do not offer recommendations here for development of faculty salary policy. Instead, we report in Section VII the present status of committee recommendations, as adopted by the Senate Executive Committee and submitted to the Provost in 1998-99.
In designing this report on the economic status of the faculty, SCESF has addressed three broad concerns:
- The salary setting process at Penn: how funds become available for faculty salaries and the how annual salary increase decisions are made.
- External comparisons: the competitiveness of faculty salaries at Penn in comparison with faculty salaries at other universities.
- Internal comparisons: variability of faculty salaries within Penn, and sources of possible salary inequity that might occur within observed variability.
Major sections of this Report are devoted to each of these three topics, while Section VI is devoted to SCESF's overall conclusions about the economic status of the faculty.
In performing its responsibilities, SCESF has been cognizant of Penn's current salary policy as stated by the President, Provost, and Executive Vice President (Almanac April 20, 1999, p. 3). Penn's guiding principle in salary planning is to pay faculty and staff (a) competitively, (b) in relationship to the markets for their services and prevailing economic conditions, (c) to acknowledge their contributions to the University, and (d) to help Penn remain a strong and financially viable institution.
In studying faculty salaries for this report, SCESF continues to benefit from detailed salary information (excluding, of course, individual faculty salaries) that has been provided by Penn's administration.Our understanding both of Penn's competitiveness with peer institutions in faculty salary levels and of faculty salary variability within Penn has been enhanced by access to this information and by the assistance of those who produced it. The SCESF acknowledges this cooperation with appreciation.
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TABLES: TABLE 1 | TABLE 2 | TABLE 3 | TABLE 4 | TABLE 5 | TABLE 6 | TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9 | TABLE 10 | TABLE 11 | TABLE 12
II. Resources for Faculty Salaries
Faculty salaries are the product of a two-step process. First, most of each school's resources are raised in accordance with the principles of Penn's Responsibility Center Budgeting System. In addition, subvention is distributed to schools by Penn's central administration. Of these resources, each School makes a certain amount available for faculty salaries in three respects: (a) sustaining existing faculty appointments, (b) providing annual salary increments for continuing faculty members, and (c) creating salary funding for new faculty positions. In addition, schools must provide funds for employee benefits that approximate 30% of all such faculty salary expenditures. Second, deans of schools make annual salary increment recommendations to the Provost for continuing faculty members by a different process. These two steps are described separately in the following sections.
A. Responsibility Center Budgeting System
In accordance with principles of the Responsibility Center Budgeting System (RCBS), each of Penn's 12 schools is allocated most of the income that it generates annually. In turn, each School is obligated to establish a level of annual expenses that does not exceed the total of available income.
A school's revenues are divided into two major fund groups: "General Operating Funds" (which were termed "unrestricted" funds prior to 1997), the expenditure of which is not restricted by specific terms and conditions established by external donors; and "Designated Funds" (which were termed "restricted" funds prior to 1997), the expenditure of which is restricted by specific terms and conditions established by external donors of such funds. Because payment of the base academic year salaries of most standing faculty members is assured from General Operating Funds (even though significant portions of such salaries are actually paid from Designated Funds), only principles of the RCBS as applied to General Operating Funds are described here.1
In general, the General Operating Funds income available to each School is of three types: earned income, gift income, and centrally-awarded subvention. These sources are shown in greater detail in Table 1 for all of Penn's 12 Schools combined. Tuition is, by far, the greatest source of school income, with indirect cost recoveries from externally funded projects a distant second.
With respect to faculty salaries, it is possible (at least in principle) that the amount of money available to a school could be increased by augmenting a school's income from one or more of the nine specific sources listed in Table 1 . To the extent that it is possible to increase a school's income from sources that are based on the work of faculty (e.g., tuition, indirect cost recoveries, and net income from clinical practices), faculty members have influence over the growth of income that is available for supporting faculty salaries.
General Operating Fund expenses for each school are also of three general types: academic compensation2 (i.e., salary plus benefits), other school-related operating expenses (including staff compensation, materials, equipment, debt service, and student aid), and central University costs that are allocated among the schools according to RCBS formulas (e.g., facilities services, central computing services, central research support services, the University Library System, public safety, etc.).
These expenses are shown in greater detail in Table 1 for all of Penn's 12 schools combined. Academic compensation and total allocated costs were the greatest (and roughly equal) sources of school expenses in the FY 1998 budget. With respect to academic salaries, it is possible (at least in principle) that the amount of money available within a school could be increased by reducing that school's "standard of living" (i.e., by reducing the level of staff and other support, facilities used, and/or student aid), or by increasing the efficiency of that school's administrative operations (or those of the central University) so that key services are delivered at current or expanded levels, but a lower cost. In essence, the RCBS sends the message to schools that each can spend as much as it can earn, and that each School has a great deal of latitude in how to spend its income. More, or less, might be spent on faculty salaries at a school's discretion. A major exception to this message is that a significant component of income is subvention--an annual award of funds to each school by the University centrally. The amount of subvention awarded to each school is based on a number of considerations such as an adjustment for certain inequalities among schools in the costs of providing instruction and supporting research. One of many such considerations can be the variation of average faculty salaries by rank among schools. For this and other reasons, the percentage of school expenses provided by subvention income varied widely among Penn's schools from a low of 4% to a high of 28% during FY 1998.3 These percentages suggest that considerable central judgment is used in allocating subvention to schools.
B. How Annual Salary Increase Decisions Are Made
Annual salary increase recommendations for continuing faculty members are made by Department Chairs (in schools with departments) and by Deans, with review and oversight by the Provost (see the Appendix for a statement of the "Salary Guidelines For 1998-99" published in Almanac, April 20, 1999, p. 3, online at www.upenn.edu/almanac/v45/n29/ORsalary.html). Penn's President, Provost, and Executive Vice President set an upper limit on a "pool percentage" for salary increases. For FY 2000, schools were authorized to award, as salary increases, a pool of up to 3.5% of the FY 1999 salaries of continuing faculty members. The recommended salary increase range was 1% to 6%, with Deans being obligated to consult with the Provost about any increases outside this range. Deans could supplement the pool by 0.5% without the Provost's approval, and by more than this with the Provost's approval. To address possible inequity in faculty salaries, Deans were asked to "pay particular attention to any faculty who meet standards of merit but whose salaries for various reasons may have lagged over the years."
Within this framework of available funds, Department Chairs and Deans had the responsibility to recommend salary increases to the Provost for each continuing faculty member based on general merit, including recognition of outstanding teaching, scholarship, research, and service. In addition, the Provost reviews the Deans' faculty salary recommendations "to insure that raises on average reflect market conditions in each discipline."
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TABLES: TABLE 1 | TABLE 2 | TABLE 3 | TABLE 4 | TABLE 5 | TABLE 6 | TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9 | TABLE 10 | TABLE 11 | TABLE 12
III. Penn Faculty Salaries: External Comparisons
Average Penn Faculty Salaries (i.e., academic year base salaries) are compared with three types of external indicators in the following sections: growth in the Consumer Price Index (CPI), average faculty salaries by rank at other universities as reported by annual survey conducted at the school level, and average salaries of full professors for a sample of 17 public and private research universities selected as comparable to Penn from among those included in the "Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession" issued by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP). As a methodological note and unless otherwise specifically stated, all faculty salary information discussed in this report refers to the aggregated "academic year base salary" of individual faculty members whether salaries are paid from General Operating Funds and/or from Designated Funds. In addition, all salary data reported exclude members of the Faculty of Medicine and all standing faculty members who are appointed as Clinician Educators from four other schools that have such positions (Dental Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work).
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A. Comparisons with Growth in the Consumer Price Index (CPI)
Faculty salary increases by rank, averaged for all schools except Medicine, for FY 1998, FY 1999, FY 2000, and compound cumulative for FY 1990-99, are shown in Table 2 in comparison with comparable data for the CPI (UScityaverage) and Penn budget guidelines. Even though the nation is in a period of low inflation, it is reassuring to observe that median faculty salary increments for all three ranks for FY 1998 exceeded the percentage growth in the CPI and Penn's budget guidelines for the years reported.
The most impressive salary increase percentages were the cumulative compound salary increments over the 10-year period from FY 1990 through FY 1999 as seen in Table 2. On the whole (all ranks combined), cumulative mean Penn faculty salary increments during this 10-year period were almost twice the growth in the CPI (UScityaverage).4
Furthermore, the mean compound cumulative growth in faculty salaries over the 10-year period exceeded Penn's budget guidelines by a considerable margin. These guidelines refer to the centrally-recommended salary pool percentage. What has happened is that many (perhaps all) of the Deans of Penn's schools have added considerable additional school resources to the recommended cumulative base pool for salary increments. If we estimate the compound cumulative increase over the 10-year period for all ranks combined to be 68% (the exact number is not available), the cumulative compound additional contribution of schools to the salary pool must have approximated 20% (68% minus the recommended budget guideline of 46.6%). Thus, it is apparent that both Penn's central and school administrations have made substantial joint efforts to raise the average level of faculty salaries well in excess of the rate of inflation in the CPI during the past 10 years.5
TABLE OF CONTENTS | COMMITTEE MEMBERS | FOOTNOTES | BACK TO TOP OF THIS SECTIONThe overall increases in faculty salary by rank in comparison with growth in the CPI, as seen in Table 2, are reported by school (including three disciplinary areas of SAS) in Table 3 for FY 1998, FY 1999 and FY 2000. A high percentage of faculty members in all of these schools/areas was awarded salary increments for FY 2000 that exceeded growth in the CPI (Phil.) for the twelve-month period ending June 1999. More particularly, all faculty members in 3 of 13 schools/areas were awarded salary increases greater than the most recent CPI growth percentage.
Given the fairly low percentage level of inflation in Philadelphia (2.38%) and the fact that aggregate salary increases for the continuing professorate ranged from a low of 3.9% (Dental Medicine, which provided salary increases in excess of the most recent CPI growth percentage to 95% its faculty members) to a high of 10.9% (Annenberg, which provided salary increases in excess of the CPI percentage to all its faculty members) for FY 2000, it is puzzling to see that 8 of the other 11 schools/areas awarded a salary increase below the CPI growth percentage to more than five percent of all continuing standing faculty members. In particular, over 10% of faculty members in the School of Arts and Sciences (the three areas of humanities, natural sciences, and social sciences combined) were awarded salary increases less that the CPI growth percentage. Likewise, well over 10% of faculty members in the Graduate School of Fine Arts and the School of Social Work received increases less than the CPI percentage. Under such conditions, there is always concern that the salary increases for some individual faculty members might have been inequitably low. It is also disappointing because an increase of less than the CPI growth percentage for an individual faculty member represents an effective reduction in the purchasing power of a salary.
In addition, trends during the three year period shown in Table 3 represent declines in the percentage of faculty members receiving salary increases greater than growth in the CPI (Phil.). Overall for FY 2000, 9% of faculty members received salary increases less than CPI growth, whereas this percentage was only 7% for FY 1999. While some schools improved their percentages during the three years shown in Table 3 (e.g., Annenberg), there was a systematic decline in these percentages for each of the three disciplinary areas of SAS.
By contrast (as shown in Table 4), the vast majority of full professors of all schools/areas received cumulative salary increments that exceeded growth in the CPI (Phil.) over the six fiscal years from 1994 though 2000. On this indicator, 5 of 13 schools/areas awarded cumulative salary increases exceeding growth in the CPI to 100% of its continuing full professors, while no school/area was below 90%. Moreover, there has been considerable improvement in these cumulative percentages during the three blocks of time reported for Grad Education, the social science area of SAS, and Veterinary Medicine. The high percentages for most schools/areas indicate that only a small minority of full professors have fallen behind growth in the CPI over the most recent six year period. The two exceptions to this generalization are the natural sciences area of SAS (90%) and Grad Fine Arts (91%).
SCESF recognizes that there are legitimate reasons for individual faculty members to be awarded increments less that the growth in the CPI. For example, in a particular year, the salary increment pool may only approximate, or even be less than, the rate of growth in the CPI. Furthermore in a small department or school, a few promotions or market adjustments needed to retain a valued faculty member could obligate a disproportionate share of an existing increment pool, thereby leaving little to award to other faculty members in the unit. Finally, some faculty members may be sufficiently lacking in merit to justify an increment exceeding the CPI growth.
Nonetheless, if the salary increment pool available in each school/area is well in excess of CPI growth (as it has been in recent years), it is the judgment of SCESF that no individual faculty member should receive less than a cumulative salary increase equal to, or exceeding, growth in the CPI unless his or her performance has been unsatisfactory. It therefore seems possible that the cumulative salary increments received by some continuing full professors have been inequitably low, at least in part.
TABLE OF CONTENTS | COMMITTEE MEMBERS | FOOTNOTES | BACK TO TOP OF THIS SECTIONB. Comparisons with Peer Universities Using MIT Survey Data
The best currently available salary data from other institutions of higher education are provided by the MIT annual survey of a group of approximately 23 private and public research universities (the sample size varies somewhat from year to year). Mean faculty salaries by rank (professor, associate professor, assistant professor) and discipline have been made available to the SCESF for analysis as of the Fall Semesters for the years 1996 through 1999. These salary data are reported for the following academic fields:
- Natural Sciences (at Penn, represented by SAS departments)
- Humanities and Social Sciences (at Penn, represented by SAS departments)
- Engineering (at Penn, represented by SEAS)
- Architecture (at Penn, represented by GSFA6)
- Management (at Penn, represented by Wharton)
Even though the MIT sample varies somewhat from year to year, comparisons reported here have been made only with universities that submitted salary data consistently during the four year period examined. The MIT sample includes major private universities, as well as a number of highly regarded public research universities and one college. However, the specific sample of universities varies with the academic fields listed above. Each of these samples is described in turn below.
TABLE OF CONTENTS | COMMITTEE MEMBERS | FOOTNOTES | BACK TO TOP OF THIS SECTION1. The MIT Sample of Universities
Comparison Sample for Natural Sciences, Social Sciences, and Humanities: The MIT sample for academic disciplines in these areas includes 23 institutions: the California Institute of Technology, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Purdue, Rice, Stanford, California (Berkeley), California (Los Angeles), California (San Diego), California (Santa Barbara), Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rochester, Texas, Williams College, and Yale. These universities are, to a large extent, comparable to Penn. Although one small college (Williams) is included in the sample, other institutions are large research universities. The sample would be improved by the participation of the University of Chicago. There is one dimension on which the sample may not be completely comparable to Penn: just under one half of the schools are state universities (ten of the twenty-three). Moreover, four of the state universities are in the University of California system. However, as long as one is aware of the relatively large weight public universities have in this survey, the sample of universities is appropriate for comparison purposes.
Comparison Sample for Engineering: The MIT sample for engineering includes 20 institutions: the California Institute of Technology, Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Purdue, Rice, Stanford, California (Berkeley), California (Los Angeles), California (San Diego), California (Santa Barbara), Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Rochester, Texas, and Yale. In the judgement of SCESF, meaningful salary comparisons can be made with this sample of universities because it is sufficiently representative of engineering schools elsewhere that are considered to be peers of Penn's School of Engineering and Applied Science (SEAS).
Comparison Sample for Architecture: The MIT sample for architecture includes 15 institutions: Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Princeton, Rice, California (Berkeley), California (Los Angeles), Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Texas, and Yale. In the judgement of SCESF, meaningful salary comparisons can be made with this sample of universities because it is sufficiently representative of architecture schools elsewhere that are considered to be peers of Penn's Graduate School of Fine Arts (GSFA).
Comparison Sample for Management: The MIT sample for management includes 18 institutions: Carnegie-Mellon, Columbia, Cornell, Georgia Institute of Technology, Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Purdue, Rice, Stanford, California (Berkeley), California (Los Angeles), Illinois, Michigan, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rochester, Texas, and Yale. In the judgement of SCESF, meaningful salary comparisons can be made with this sample of universities because it is sufficiently representative of management schools elsewhere that are considered to be peers of Penn's Wharton School.
2. Salary Comparisons: Penn's Competitive Standing
The most meaningful comparisons of mean faculty salaries at Penn with those at other universities in the MIT sample are broken out by academic field and rank. However, as a broad overall generalization for the four schools at Penn included in the MIT survey as weighted by faculty size, it is fair to conclude that Penn's mean faculty salaries (at the full professor and associate professor ranks) were above average in the MIT sample as of the Fall 1999. These two senior ranks represent a substantial majority of the faculty. By contrast, assistant professor salaries overall were only about average. Thus, Penn faculty salaries (overall for the four schools included) are at a competitive level as defined by being well above average in the substantial MIT sample of comparison research universities (about half of which are private and half public).
However, Penn's general competitive level in the MIT sample has declined somewhat during the past four years, especially at the full and associate professor ranks. Thus, there is clearly room for improvement in Penn's competitive position in the MIT sample, both in terms of its relative standing and in recovering lost ground.
In our 1999 report, SCESF provided information about mean salary levels for each academic field included in the MIT survey for the most recent year for which data were available (Fall 1997). This information is now updated for Fall 1998 and 1999 in Table 5 in terms of Penn's rank order of mean salary levels within the MIT sample. In addition, comparable data are shown in Table 5 for each of four years beginning with the Fall 1996. The multi-year data of Table 5 are comparable in that the same set of comparison universities is used for each of the four years reported. Thus, none of the trends in rank orders observed over time can be attributed to instability in the sample size or composition.
SCESF has analyzed both the rank order salary data of Table 5 and the more detailed salary data (e.g., frequency distributions) from which the rank orders were computed. Based on our comprehensive study of data from the MIT Salary Survey, we describe below, in separate paragraphs for each academic field and rank, the two most salient points: (a) the competitive position of a Penn mean salary level as of Fall 1999 (the most recent salary data) and (b) the change (if any) in this competitive position during the past four years.
Full Professors in the Natural Sciences: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of full professors in the natural sciences at Penn ranked 13th of 23 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although one of the 12 universities above Penn was less than 2% higher7. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position within the MIT sample is best described as average. This position of Penn's mean salary in the natural sciences represents a noticeable8 decline in its competitive position since 1996-97.
Full Professors in the Social Sciences and Humanities: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of full professors in the social sciences and humanities at Penn ranked 10th of 23 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although 2 of the 9 universities above Penn were less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position in the widely distributed MIT sample in this academic field is best described as somewhat above average. Nonetheless, this position of Penn's mean salary in the social sciences and humanities represents a noticeable decline in its competitive position since 1996-97.
Full Professors in Engineering: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of Penn's engineering professors ranked 12th of 20 universities in the relevant MIT sample. Although all of the 11 universities with higher salaries exceeded Penn's level by more than 2%, engineering salaries in the MIT sample are not dispersed widely--the import of which is that the Penn mean salary, though somewhat below average, is still close to the majority of those above. Nonetheless, the current competitive position of Penn's mean salary in engineering represents a noticeable decline in its competitive position since 1996-97.
Full Professors of Architecture: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of Penn's GSFA professors was quite competitive in that it ranked 3rd of 15 universities in the relevant MIT sample. However, the two universities with higher salaries exceeded Penn's level by a considerable amount. In comparison with the entire sample of 15 universities reporting data for architecture, the mean GSFA salary leads a narrowly disbursed middle group. In general, the current competitiveness of the GSFA mean salary is comparable to that in 1996-97.
Full Professors of Management: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of Penn's Wharton professors ranked 5th of 18 universities in the relevant MIT sample. Although all of the 4 universities with higher salaries exceeded Penn's level by more than 2%, the Wharton mean salary in the MIT sample is nonetheless close to the majority of those above--the import of which is that the mean Wharton salary is reasonably competitive with most of the highest offered elsewhere. The current Wharton mean salary represents a noticeable improvement in its competitive position since 1996-97.
Associate Professors in the Natural Sciences: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of associate professors in the natural sciences at Penn ranked 19th of 23 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although 3 of the 18 universities above Penn were less than 2% higher. Even so, Penn's current competitive position within the MIT sample is somewhat below average. The competitive position of the Penn mean salary in the natural sciences represents a considerable decline since 1996-97.
Associate Professors in the Social Sciences and Humanities: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of associate professors in the social sciences and humanities at Penn ranked 7th of 23 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although 1 of the 6 universities above Penn was less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position in the MIT sample in this academic field is somewhat above average. The competitive position of the Penn mean salary in the social sciences and humanities has been stable since 1996-97.
Associate Professors in Engineering: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of associate professors in engineering at Penn ranked 12th of 20 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although 3 of the 11 universities above Penn were less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position in the MIT sample in this academic field is best described as average. The competitive position of this Penn mean salary in engineering has declined noticeably since 1996-97.
Associate Professors of Management: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of associate professors at Penn's Wharton School ranked 5th of 18 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although one of the 4 universities above Penn was less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position in the MIT sample in this academic field is somewhat above average. The current Wharton mean salary represents a noticeable improvement in its competitive position since 1996-97.
Assistant Professors in the Natural Sciences: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of assistant professors in the natural sciences at Penn ranked 8th of 23 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although 1 of the 7 universities above Penn was less than 2% higher. Even so, Penn's current competitive position within the MIT sample is best described as average because the Penn salary was very close to the median of the sample. In spite of improvement in the rank order of the Penn mean salary in the natural sciences since 1996-97 (as seen in Table 5), closer inspection of the date indicates that Penn's competitive position is comparable to that in 1996-97.
Assistant Professors in the Social Sciences and Humanities: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of assistant professors in the social sciences and humanities at Penn ranked 16th of 23 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although one of the 15 universities above Penn was less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position in the MIT sample in this academic field is considerably below average. The competitive position of the Penn mean salary in the social sciences and humanities has declined considerably since 1996-97.
Assistant Professors in Engineering: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of assistant professors in engineering at Penn ranked 18th of 20 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although one of the 17 universities above Penn was less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's mean salary in this academic field is not competitive in the MIT sample. In addition, the competitive position of the Penn mean salary in engineering has declined considerably since 1996-97.
Assistant Professors of Architecture: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of assistant professors in Penn's GSFA ranked 12th of 13 universities in the relevant MIT sample. All of the 11 universities with higher salaries exceeded Penn's level by more than 2%. Thus, Penn's mean salary in this academic field is not competitive in the MIT sample. In addition, the competitive position of the GSFA mean salary has declined noticeably since 1996-97.
Assistant Professors of Management: As of 1999-2000, the mean salary of assistant professors in Penn's Wharton School professors ranked 5th of 18 universities in the relevant MIT sample, although 2 of the 4 universities above Penn were less than 2% higher. Accordingly, Penn's current competitive position in the MIT sample in this academic field is somewhat above average. The competitive position of this Wharton mean salary has been stable since 1996-97.
3. General Conclusions about Penn's Competitive Standing by Academic Field
As of academic year 1999-2000, the competitiveness of Penn's mean salary levels varies greatly across academic fields, and by professorial rank within fields. Only Wharton's mean salaries are considerably above average across all three ranks. The mean salaries at Penn of full and associate professors in the social sciences and humanities (combined) are also above average, though the mean salary of assistant professors is below average. Similarly, the mean salary of full professors in GSFA is above average, while that of assistant professors ranks only 12th out of 13 in the MIT sample. Likewise, the mean salary of Penn's assistant professors in engineering lags well behind the competition.
Except for Wharton, there certainly is much room for general improvement in the competitiveness of Penn mean salary levels. How much improvement should be expected is indeterminate because there are no established target levels. However, it might be assumed that recent levels of competitiveness mark at least the lower boundary.9 By that measure, Penn has experienced a general decline in competitiveness in all academic fields covered by the MIT survey except Wharton (which has achieved noticeable improvement). The competitiveness of the mean salaries of Penn full professors have noticeably declined in the natural sciences, social sciences/humanities, and engineering. The mean associate professor salary in natural science has declined considerably, as have the mean salaries of assistant professors in the social sciences/humanities and in engineering.
Overall, this is a much less promising overview of Penn's competitiveness by academic field and rank than presented in SCESF's 1999 Annual Report. This raises the question about what explains the general decline in Penn's salary competitiveness in the MIT sample of research universities during the four most recent years. One possibility is that Penn has been investing a decreasing amount of funds in faculty salary increases in its four schools (SAS, SEAS, GSFA, Wharton) that are included in the MIT survey during the period 1996-97 to 1999-00. A review of salary increase percentages, year-by-year, for each school and each rank within school reveals that this is quite dramatically not so. For each rank for each of the four schools, the mean salary increase percentage was greater in 1999-00 than it was in 1996-97. Likewise, salary increase percentages for 1997-98 and 1998-99 (with one or two exceptions) were higher across the board than in 1996-97. Thus, Penn has been aggressively increasing faculty salaries during the past three years as judged by its own standards.
Therefore, the explanation for the general decline Penn's salary competitiveness (other than Wharton) for three of the four schools included in the MIT survey must be that our competition is increasing faculty salaries at a considerably higher rate than Penn. That is, in spite of Penn's efforts to improve faculty salary levels, our competitive position is declining because other universities are even more aggressively increasing faculty salaries.
C. Comparisons with Other Universities for Veterinary and Dental Medicine
For the first time this year, SCESF has been able to review cross-university comparative salary data for the Schools of Veterinary Medicine and Dental Medicine. The Committee appreciates the cooperation of the Office of the Provost and the Deans of the Faculties of Veterinary Medicine and Dental Medicine in making this possible.
The mean salaries by rank of faculty members in Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine are included in a salary survey for 1998-99 conducted by the Association of American Veterinary Medical Colleges (AAVMC). Accordingly, they can be compared with those from veterinary medicine schools from 32 other universities, including a set of 11 other veterinary schools considered to be Penn's peers. The salary data recorded by this survey differs from the standard definition of salary used in this report (i.e., the academic base salary of standing faculty members excluding clinician educators) in the following ways: (a) clinician educators are included in the veterinary medicine salary data, (b) salaries reported may be on either a 9 or 12 month basis, and (c) institutional supplements (undefined) are included in salaries reported. In essence, the survey is designed to record the salary actually paid to faculty members during a fiscal year.
Under the conditions of the AAVMC salary survey, SCESF is pleased to report that the mean academic base salaries at Penn in the School of Veterinary Medicine ranked first in the peer group of 12 veterinary medicine schools for Professors, Associate Professors and Assistant Professors (including Clinician Educators). So far as known, this represents the strongest competitive position held by any school at Penn.
With respect to the mean salary levels of faculty members at Penn's School of Dental Medicine, comparative data are available from a salary survey for 1997-98 conducted by the American Association of Dental Schools (AADS). Accordingly, Penn salaries can be compared with those from dental medicine schools from 48 other universities whose identities are not reported. SCESF has been informed that five of Penn's main competitors are included in the 48 other universities participating in the survey. The data recorded by the dental salary survey differs from the standard definition of salary used in this report (i.e., the academic base salary of standing faculty members excluding clinician educators) in the following ways: (a) clinician educators are included, (b) professorial level faculty members who work less that full time at a dental school are included, (c) guaranteed annual salaries are used as the base, and can be divided by 10 to convert to a guaranteed annual salary per half day, and (d) mean salary data for Penn included the Dean, Associate Dean, and Department Heads, while the comparative data available excluded salaries earned by incumbents in these academic administrative positions.
The AADS salary data report was not broken out by university. Instead, salary data for dental schools from all participating universities were aggregated, and the mean, first quartile, second quartile, and third quartile points of this aggregated salary distribution were reported. In terms of guaranteed half day salary, faculty salaries at Penn's School of Dental Medicine compared favorably in the large sample of 49 schools so far as can be determined. The mean full professor salary at Penn appears to be above the 75th percentile, the mean associate professor salary appears to be above the 75th percentile, and the mean assistant professor salary appears to be close to the 75th percentile.
There is no way to determine how well average Penn salaries in dental medicine compare with salary levels at its peer group of dental schools. However, a spokesman for Penn's School of Dental Medicine has informed SCESF that Penn salaries at all three professorial ranks are strongly competitive within its peer group, but not ranked first.
D. Comparisons with Peer Universities Using AAUP Survey Data
In the absence of salary data for five of Penn's schools, a comparison of the mean salaries of all full professors at Penn was made with those at a small select group of research universities based on data published annually by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) in the April/May issues of Academe. To make meaningful and fair comparisons of Penn salaries with those at other Universities, five criteria for selection of comparison universities were first defined: (a) be included in the Research I category of the Carnegie Classification System, (b) offer a broad array Ph.D. programs in arts and sciences disciplines, (c) include at least two of three major professional schools (law, business, engineering), (d) not include a school of agriculture, and (e) have a composite academic reputation rating greater than 4.0 (on a five point scale)10 in a rating system reported by U.S. News & Report. The 17 research universities meeting all five of these criteria are identified in the first column of Table 6.
The relative standings of mean salaries of Penn full professors are presented in Table 6 for six years. The order of listing of universities in Table 6 was determined by the magnitude of mean salaries of full professors (from high to low) for the most recent academic year (1999-00). Next, the difference between a comparison university's mean salary and Penn's mean salary was computed as a percentage of Penn's mean salary. For example as seen in Table 6, the mean salary of Harvard full professors in 1986-87 was 16.9% higher than Penn's mean salary that year ($59,600), while the mean salary at Northwestern was 4.9% below Penn's mean salary.
The data of Table 6 show that the mean salaries for full professors at Penn gradually became more competitive during the past 14-year period. For example, seven universities provided mean salaries more that 2% higher than Penn in 1986-87, while the mean salaries at four universities (Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Chicago) exceed Penn by more than 2% in 1999-00. In addition, the percentage advantage of salaries at Harvard, Stanford, and Yale over Penn decreased substantially during this period of time, while only Chicago gained in percentage advantage.
Based on the data of Table 6, it is clear that mean salaries of full professors at Penn, on the average, become much more competitive with the very highest salaries elsewhere during the period 1986-87 through 1996-97, and during the past three years have mostly maintained their respectable competitive position among the top few universities in the nation (and probably in the world, for that matter).11 Though Penn's competitive position in this respect is strong in general, aggregated salary data such as these do not reveal which schools, and departments within schools, may provide mean salaries that are particularly competitive or that may lag behind their competition. Therefore, SCESF continues to seek comparative salary data that is specific to each of Penn's schools.
Even though SCESF was careful to select universities for overall mean salary comparisons that were similar to Penn on several important criteria and made comparisons at the full professor rank (i.e., we did not aggregate across the three professorial ranks), AAUP salary data did not permit the SCESF to control for the specific schools sponsored by each university and the number of full professors appointed to each school. Such controls are desirable because mean salary levels vary by school, as do the number of professors appointed to the faculty of each school on which the means are based. Nonetheless, the 1999-00 salary data for full professors from the AAUP survey (of Table 6) appear to be reasonably consistent with the salary data for full professors from the MIT survey (published as Table 5 in SCESF's 1999 Annual Report), and are therefore sufficiently valid to include in this report. In addition, tables similar to that of Table 6 (for full professors) were constructed for associate and assistant professors. They show that salary data from the AAUP survey are not reasonably consistent with data from the MIT survey. Therefore, no comparative salary data from AAUP surveys are presented for associate and assistant professors.
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TABLES: TABLE 1 | TABLE 2 | TABLE 3 | TABLE 4 | TABLE 5 | TABLE 6 | TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9 | TABLE 10 | TABLE 11 | TABLE 12
IV. Penn Faculty Benefits
Although our 1998-99 Annual Report included a section on comparative faculty benefits data, further study of data available on cross-university comparisons of faculty benefits has revealed that comparative benefits data are of insufficient precision to make detailed quantitative comparisons meaningful. Accordingly, no such comparisons are made in this report.
Based on available comparative benefits data, however, it appears to SCESF that employee benefits package provided for Penn faculty members is of equal, or greater, value to that provided to faculty members at Penn's peer private universities. In particular, it appearers that the tuition benefit for Penn faculty dependents is substantially greater than that provided by peer universities, while other major types of benefits are generally comparable.
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TABLES: TABLE 1 | TABLE 2 | TABLE 3 | TABLE 4 | TABLE 5 | TABLE 6 | TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9 | TABLE 10 | TABLE 11 | TABLE 12
V. Penn Faculty Salaries: Internal Comparisons
As previous reports of the SCESF have highlighted, there is a great deal of variability (e.g., inequality) in faculty salaries at Penn attributable to several recognized factors: differences in individual merit, rank, time in rank, external labor market forces, the relative wealth of Schools, and perhaps differences among Schools in principles and practices for allocating salary increments.
One of SCESF's concerns has been that, among all the existing variability in faculty salaries, there might be some significant element of inequity (i.e., salary setting based on incomplete or inaccurate information about merit, or bias that could be involved in the process of deciding salary increments). However, it is not possible for the SCESF to pinpoint any instance of individual, or group, inequity without individual faculty salaries and associated information about individual merit, labor market forces, etc. What we can do is review many facets of salary variability and raise questions about the possibility that inequity might be responsible for some degree of the observed variability. These questions might lead to further review and action by senior academic administrators (Department Chairs, Deans, and the Provost) with a view to correcting any inequities that might be identified.
We turn next to a description and analysis of several dimensions of faculty salary variability within Penn. As with the external salary comparisons reviewed above, all salary data reviewed in this section exclude the School of Medicine and all standing faculty members who are appointed as Clinician Educators from four other schools that have such positions (Dental Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work).
A. Variability in Average Salary Increases by Rank and School/Area
As reported in Table 2, median faculty salary increases by rank for all of Penn's schools combined substantially exceeded the growth in the CPI for most recent full year (FY 1999) for which both sets of data are available and exceeded Penn's budget guidelines for the past three years (FY 1998, 1999, and 2000). These salary increases are broken out by school and rank in Tables 7 through 9 [TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9] where it can be seen that there has been considerably variability in median salary increases across schools and years, as well as among the first and third quartile increases (Q1 and Q3, respectively). As might be expected with such variability, a number of the median increases were actually below the general guideline of 3.5%.
Before reviewing these salary increases, it should be recognized that the salary increase guideline of 3.5% is just that, a guideline, and pertains to an aggregate of all increases for all ranks combined for each of Penn's schools (i.e., merit increases for continuing faculty members, special increases for faculty members who have been promoted in rank, and market adjustments for faculty members with generous salary offers from other institutions). Schools may allocate more, or less, resources to faculty salary increments than the guideline, depending upon each school's financial circumstances (see Section II.B. above). Therefore, a comparison of the median increase awarded to faculty members of a particular rank and school with the salary guideline only gives an indication of the extent to which the guideline was implemented in that particular instance. Accordingly, a particular median increment of less than 3.5% should not be regarded as a specific failure of salary policy, since there is no policy for each rank and each school to be awarded at least that much on the average. Furthermore, the 3.5% guideline pertains to the mean increase, a measure of central tendency that is usually higher than the median salary increases as shown in Table 2.
Nonetheless, the overall mean salary increase for all faculty members continuing in the same rank for FY 2000 was 5.3% (see Table 2), a number well above the guideline of 3.5%. Even so, this substantial salary increase resource in the aggregate was not distributed sufficiently widely to lift the median salaries of all ranks in all schools/areas by at least the guideline amount--a phenomenon that can be attributed to differing wealth and budget priorities among the various schools as permitted under RCBS.
A seemingly modest, but significant, change in faculty salary policy was incorporated into the Salary Guidelines for 1998-99 which specified that "increases in merit should range from 1.0 to 6.0 percent." The award of increases outside this range required consultation with the Provost. Prior to this, the range specified was from 2.0 to 6.0 percent. It is reasonable to surmise that two noteworthy changes in the allocation of salary increases, as seen in Tables 7, 8, and 9 [TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9] for the two years under the new policy (i.e., 1998-99 and 1999-00), can be attributed, at least in part, to the policy shift:
- Whereas in 1997-98, the median salary increase for all three ranks of the professorate was comparable when aggregated across all school, the median percentage increases for assistant professors was considerably higher in 1998-99 and 1999-00 than it was for full professors and associate professors. Whether this was an effort to make assistant professor salaries more competitive due to market factors or due to greater merit than perceived in the higher two ranks is not clear from the data tabulated. Whatever the reason, assistant professors have been advantaged during the past two years.
- With 1% salary increases coming within the specified range for 1998-99 (instead of the prior 2%), the first quartile (Q1) raises for full and associate professors declined across all schools for 1998-99 and 1999-00 in comparison with 1997-98. This decline in first quartile increases did not occur on a school by school basis for assistant professors, another indicator of the trend noted above to higher increases of salaries of assistant professors than of full and associate professors.
The SCESF has been advised that the change in policy for 1998-99 (i.e., specifying 1% instead of 2% as the base of the standard range of salary increases) was taken because Deans wished to have greater flexibility in awarding such increases. Although SCESF has not raised an issue specifically about this policy12, we have regularly raised the more general issue about principles by which salary increases are awarded in relation to increases in the CPI. In this respect, it should be noted that all percentage increases at the first quartile for all three professorial ranks for all schools/areas were greater than increases in the CPI for 1997-98 and 1998-99.
In contrast with 1997-98, we note from Tables 7 and 8 [TABLE 7 | TABLE 8] that for 1998-99 and 1999-00 the median salary increases for full professors in each of the three areas of SAS were clearly below the budget guideline of 3.5% in each year. The same is generally true of associate professors in SAS, but not assistant professors. This trend is of concern to SCESF, and we expect to the faculty and administration of SAS as well.
The distribution of salary increase resources is shown clearly in a comparison of the first and third quartile data of Tables 7, 8, and 9 [TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9]. It can be seen that none of the relatively low median increases (below 3.5%) were due to extremely high third quartile percentage increases (i.e., because unusually large increases were allocated to only 25% of faculty members in a rank/school group), even though some positive skewness of the distributions can be observed. Instead, it seems that the increases provided to faculty members in these particular schools/areas were generally low relative to the university-wide average. Therefore, the relatively low median increases are more a problem of inadequate resources, or school policy for allocating available resources, than wide variation in the distribution of available salary increases.
Overall as seen in Tables 7, 8, and 9 [TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9], there is great variability for all three years in salary increment percentages both among Schools within ranks, and among ranks within Schools. SCESF is not aware of specific information about merit and market factors that is available to department heads and deans, and how they weigh this information in deciding salary increments for individual faculty members. Without such information, it is not possible to determine whether any inequity is involved in the salary increase percentages reported in these tables.
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B. Variability in Average Salary Levels by Rank
Three-year trends in mean faculty salaries by rank are shown in Table 10 for all schools combined (except Medicine, of course).13 Such data give the crudest perspective on rank differences in salary, however, because of aggregation biases across schools. For example, one might expect a considerably larger difference between mean assistant and associate professor salaries. The modest difference might be accounted for by the facts that the Law School has no associate professors (a fact that might decrease the observed associate professor mean) and the Wharton School has a considerably higher percentage of assistant professors than is typical of other schools (a fact that could increase the observed assistant professor mean).
A more meaningful comparison of variation in faculty salaries by rank is made by computing the ratios for continuing faculty members for each school and then computing a mean weighted ratio (weighted for the number of continuing faculty members at each rank in each school).14 The weighted ratios thus computed are also seen in Table 10. Viewed in this way, there is much greater spread in mean salary levels by rank.
As discussed in the prior section, percentage salary increases for assistant professor, in the aggregate, have been considerably greater than for full professors during the past two years (1998-99 and 1999-00). This trend can also be seen in Table 10 where the weighted ratio of professor to assistant professor salaries has declined year-by-year since 1997-98.
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C. Variability in Professorial Salaries by Years of Service
There has been some concern that full professors who have recently been recruited to Penn (perhaps including those who have recently been promoted to the rank of full professor) have had their salary levels set considerably higher than professors of equivalent merit who have served at Penn for many years (and without commensurate increases to the levels set for recent appointees). If so, this phenomenon would constitute an inequity in salary policy. However, salary data available to SCESF at this time, though imperfect, do not support this concern. The Committee hopes to secure more definitive data in the future.
D. Variability of Average Salary Levels by School/Area
As described in previous SCESF reports, there is considerable variability in average faculty salary levels across Penn's 13 schools/areas (as listed in Table 3). Information about the extent of this cross-school variability is presented by rank in Table 11 for the two most recent academic years in terms of the first quartile (Q1), second quartile (Q2, the same as the median), and the third quartile (Q3) of median faculty salary levels. For full professors, the interquartile range of median salaries in 1999-00 based on the 13 schools/areas was $29,000 (i.e., the third quartile salary of $124,000 minus the first quartile salary of $95,000). The comparable interquartile range of salary levels across schools/areas was less understandably less for associate professors ($21,500) and assistant professors ($16,600) in absolute dollars, but not as a percentage of the medians (about 28%). Thus, for all three ranks, the interquartile range of median salaries across schools/areas was remarkably large. Moreover, the interquartile ranges in 1999-00 had increased considerably from the prior year (1998-99) when they were "only" $22,100 for full professors and $14,800 for associate professors. This is evidence of rapidly increasing disparity of faculty salaries across Penn's 13 schools/areas.
Given this increasing variability in median faculty salaries across schools/areas shown in Table 11, SCESF examined other available data to determine whether the degree of variability has been stable or changing over a longer period of time than the two years shown in Table 11. For the most recent five year period, SCESF compared the mean salary of faculty members continuing in the same rank at the highest paid school with the mean salary of those at the lowest paid school.15 The results of this analysis, as shown in Table 12, reveal that the mean salaries of full professors in the highest paying school has been stable at about 160% of the mean salaries in the lowest paying school for the past four years, while the relationship of the highest to the lowest mean salaries of associate professors has stabilized at a higher level (about 174%) during the past two years. By contrast, the mean salaries of assistant professors in the highest paying school has continued to grow in relation to the lowest paying school from FY 1996 through FY 2000 when it reached 221%. Overall, for all three ranks, the difference between the highest and lowest median salaries of associate and assistant professors across schools/areas increased substantially during the five year period from FY 1996 to FY 1999.
The trend toward greater disparity across schools in mean salary levels of continuing full, associate, and assistant professors, as seen in Table 11, has occurred because, as a general trend, schools/areas offering higher average salaries also offer higher annual percentage increases. This phenomenon is demonstrated by a substantial correlation between the median percentage salary increase for full professors in one year with the median salary level in the same year across Penn's 13 schools/areas. In FY 1999, this correlation coefficient (r) across the 13 schools/areas was .51; in FY 2000, it was .46. Moreover, this correlation of the amount of salary increase with median salary levels is a more general trend. The median percentage salary increase of full professors from FY 1993 though FY 1999 was correlated highly (i.e., r = .62) with the median salary in FY 1999 across the 13 schools/areas. Thus, the escalation of average salary differences across schools/areas is a multi-year trend that has continued into the current year.
In short, these statistical facts indicate that, in general, differences in average faculty salaries between lower paying schools/areas and higher paying schools/areas have been, and continue to be, increasing both in dollar amount and in percentage difference. As noted in prior SCESF reports, variability among schools/areas is no doubt a product, to a considerable extent, of market forces in the hiring of faculty members and in the relative wealth of schools (i.e., financial ability to support faculty salaries). The relative wealth of schools available for supporting faculty salaries is, in major part, a function of how much income a school is able to earn and the level of non-faculty expenditures it regards as essential--all as discussed above in the section on the RCBS.
Whether variability in faculty salary levels among schools/areas represents some degree of inequity is controversial. Some argue that it is, while others argue that it is a natural outcome of the wealth inherent in various disciplines and professional fields that schools represent. Any effort to reduce such variability substantially by central university policy would no doubt require fundamental changes in the RCBS--a system that has become well entrenched during the past three decades.
If the wide difference among schools/areas in average salaries of full professors seen at Penn is a general phenomenon at other universities as well, there will be evidence that Penn is experiencing a general market phenomenon instead of a local idiosyncracy. To test this possibility, we have analyzed 1999-00 data from the MIT Salary Survey for 12 universities16 which reported salary means for full professors for all five academic areas (architecture, engineering, natural sciences, social sciences/humanities, and management). For each of these 12 universities, we computed the ratio of the average salary of the highest paying area to the average salary of the lowest paying area. The result was that these 12 ratios ranged from a low of 1.32 to a high of 2.05, with a mean of 1.59--indicating that wide variation in average faculty salaries across academic areas is common and substantial. Penn's ratio in the MIT data was virtually the same (1.64) as the mean of the 12 universities. This suggests that the variability in mean faculty salaries across schools/areas at Penn is currently in line with experience elsewhere, and is a function of general economic forces affecting all of academia.
To determine whether there has been a general trend over time in other universities toward greater variability of mean faculty salaries across five academic areas, we computed for 1996-97 the same ratios of the highest to the lowest mean salaries by the same method described above for 1999-00 mean salaries. The mean ratio in 1996-97 (1.52) was clearly lower than in 1999-00 (1.59), thereby suggesting there is a general trend over time toward increasing differences across schools in mean faculty salaries. Penn is perfectly in line with this apparent general trend.
Table 11.Variability of academic base salary levels among schools/areasa: First, second, and third quart-ile median salary levels by rank and year. | |||||
| - | - | Quartiles: Median Salariesb |
- | ||
| Rank | Academic Year | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Number of Areas |
| Full Professor | 1998-99 | $ 92.5K | $ 99.9K | $114.6K | 13 |
| - | 1999-00 | 95.0K | 103.7K | 124.0K | 13 |
| Associate Professor | 1998-99 | $63.1K | $73.0K | $77.9K | 12 |
| - | 1999-00 | 65.3K | 76.7K | 86.8K | 12 |
| Assistant Professor | 1998-99 | $49.4K | $52.1K | $66.9K | 12 |
| - | 1999-00 | 52.0K | 54.3K | 68.6K | 12 |
| NOTE: Median academic base salary levels for Penn's schools/areas are based on standing faculty members who continued in the same rank from FY 1998 to FY 1999 (the 1998-99 data), and from FY 1999 to FY 2000 (the 1999-00 data). Excluded were all members of the Faculty of Medicine, all Clinician Educators from four other schools (Dental Medicine, Veterinary Medicine, Nursing, and Social Work) that have such positions, and faculty members who were promoted effective for each year reported. | |||||
| a - The thirteen schools/areas used for this analysis at the full professor level are the same as those listed in Table 3. The number of schools used at the associate and assistant professor levels was slightly less because the numbers of faculty members within these ranks was very low for a few schools. | |||||
| b - Variability of median salary levels among schools/areas is reported by quartile. At the lower end of the median salary level distribution, 25% of the median salary levels of all schools/areas were below the first quartile (Q1), while the other 75% were above. In the middle, 50% of the median salary levels of all schools/areas were below the second quartile (Q2, also called the median), while the other 50% were above. At the upper end, 75% of median salary levels of all schools were below the third quartile (Q3), while the other 25% were above. | |||||
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TABLES: TABLE 1 | TABLE 2 | TABLE 3 | TABLE 4 | TABLE 5 | TABLE 6 | TABLE 7 | TABLE 8 | TABLE 9 | TABLE 10 | TABLE 11 | TABLE 12
VI. Conclusions
A. Economic Status of the Faculty
1. External Competitiveness. In general, faculty salaries, benefits, and compensation (the sum of the two) at Penn are competitive with a small select group of universities that provide the highest levels of faculty compensation in the nation. Evidence for this conclusion comes from the following sources:
- The results of the annual MIT salary survey of 23 major research universities (about half private, half public) place the weighted mean salaries of Penn full professors and associate professors (from SAS, SEAS, GSFA, and Wharton, combined) above average at about the 60th percentile of their respective academic fields as of Fall 1999.
- The results of annual surveys of faculty salaries in dental medicine and veterinary medicine suggest that the mean salary levels in Penn's School of Veterinary Medicine and School of Dental Medicine are among the highest in their respective fields.
- The results of the annual AAUP salary survey for a group of 17 peer research universities place the mean salary of Penn full professors in rank order five as of academic year 1999-00. The highest mean salary in this group (at Harvard University) is 12% higher than the Penn mean (Table 6).