Re: faculty salaries

[Behraad Bahreyni <bba19@sfu.ca>]

Actually, this is the norm in all engineering departments that I know about in the US. I guess paying for 9 months of the year works if the prof can bring in external funds, and thus, pay himself/herself through those funds. It is interesting that you did not notice this in the US.

Looking at the Canadian market, some information can be obtained from Statistics Canada, which clearly shows that SFU faculty are paid less than their colleagues at the Universities of Alberta, Waterloo, Lethbridge, OIT, York, Toronto, UBC, and several other schools. Here is a study by MacLeans magazine where the prof salaries are ranked across ~50 Canadian universities, showing that SFU ranked 22nd. Couple this with the cost of living (i.e., housing) in metro-Vancouver and we will be much farther down the list.

Behraad

On 11/8/2013 9:24 AM, Steve DiPaola wrote:

While this is a great conversation, I do take issue with the now repeated idea that most US schools use  " 8/9 month appointments and the faculty member is expected to augment the salary from research and/or contracts in the other 3 months." While this happens in Europe, I never noticed this being the norm in the US - it surely wasn't for me at NYIT and Stanford University; and is not for the faculty peers I know in dozens of US universities. Others might have different experiences than my 16 years in the US system.

-  Steve DiPaola    -  -  
 - Director: SFU Cognitive Science Program;  Assoc Prof:

  - Interactive Arts & Technology (SIAT)    - Simon Fraser University - 
    - -  research:     http://ivizlab.sfu.ca/research
      -  art gallery:    www.dipaola.org/gallery

On Fri, Nov 8, 2013 at 9:16 AM, carl schwarz <cschwarz@stat.sfu.ca> wrote:

As pointed out by previous posters, comparison of academic salaries across nations is difficult because of various factors. For example, many reported salaries from the US are for 8/9 month appointments and the faculty member is expected to augment the salary from research and/or contracts in the other 3 months. THis augmentation is not included in these averages.

For example, the American Statistical Association regularly conducts salary surveys (e.g. http://magazine.amstat.org/blog/2013/01/01/academicsurvey/). These are broken out by rank and type of college (but only for statisticians). If you compare the 9 month American salary to the 12 month Canadian salaries, the nominal dollar values are about equal, but obviously the American salaries could be augmented from research grants which are not included.

Other organizations prepare similar salary surveys for their disciplines -- usually a google search will lead to such comparisons.

Information about Canadian salaries used to be collected by Statistics Canada, but this survey was cancelled in the recent round of federal budget cuts. The latest salary data is presented at

   http://www.stat.sfu.ca/~cschwarz/SFUFA

Some universities (e.g. Macmaster) post more recent salary values

   e.g. http://www.mcmaster.ca/avpira/statistics/salary_statistics_1112.html

so it is possible to try and "collate" these numbers, but tedious. CAUT is studying a replacement for the Statistics Canada data.

You also have to be careful to distinguish NOMINAL salaries (i.e. before study leaves) vs. ACTUAL money received (as reported by the Vancouver Sun 

(e.g. http://www.vancouversun.com/business/public-sector-salaries/index.html) which may not be the same. The "SunShine" lists from other provinces (e.g. Ontario at http://www.fin.gov.on.ca/en/publications/salarydisclosure/pssd/) are also useful for intra-Canadian comparisons and report actual dollar values and not nominal salaries.

Carl Schwarz.

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 10:46 PM, Stacy Pigg <slpigg@gmail.com> wrote:

Clearly the data involved is not simple to compile or evaluate.

1) For instance, in some records of our supposed "salaries," the amount we have taken as advances from our research accounts to cover expenses is included for record-keeping purposes (not taxation purposes) as part of our individual "salary." This is an artifact of accounting procedures. For those of us who do our research not only off-campus, but for extended periods of time in countries where banking regulations prohibit the transfer of US or Canadian dollars, this means that we request pretty large travel advances so that we can carry cash (yes, I have actually sewn bills into my clothing in order to get my research funds to where I need it). In my case, I know that the Vancouver Sun listing of my salary includes a chunk of my SSHRC grant that had to be delivered to me in the form of advances. It did not augment my personal income.

2) Anecdotal evidence is not irrelevant. Averages and medians (and other aggregations) are important data analysis tools, but we also know that outlier cases can also be instructive for understanding the processes at work.

I'm sure I am not the only Full Prof to learn that a recent good-but-not-Truly-Exceptional  Ph.D.s starting salary in Ontario is less than $10,000 less than one's own salary. Or to interview for a job (say, across town, or in another province) and learn that the "typical" starting salary for your rank is at least $30,000 more (you are the same person, your work would be exactly the same yet somehow just by doing it somewhere else your expertise maginally becomes "worth" so much more). Many of us also can relate rather stark tales of salary compression within SFU.

3) If SFU has to offer an "market differential" to all recent hires, then that indicates that our salaries are below.... "the market rate"

4) the statistical aggregations we rely on for this information are static -- they indicate average or median changes annually, but they do not track salary-over-career and the unusual temporality of SFU salary policies, where faculty often become "stuck" at a ceiling for a few years before they get a raise. SFU's ceilings are the issue. Productive faculty who consistently receive merit increases at the Assist and Assoc levels will hit the salary ceilings well before they can go up for promotion to the next level. This is particular noticeable at the Associate Professor rank, as Neil noted. The rules of the game have changed in recent years to ameliorate this problem. Much depends on timing of your hire... so ...

5) We all have different salary trajectories at SFU -- there appears to be  a major "cohort" effect. Policies have changed over the years. An important change was the 2004 ceiling adjustment. If you had the bad luck to get your biggest merit increases clawed back because you were "at ceiling" in the 2003 review cohort, then the policy change came too late for you. A number of salary adjustments ( parental leave top-up; first study leave at 100% rather than 80% pay, changes in ceilings and in normal starting step) have all come into effect. Not to mention the normalization of the market differential. To my knowledge, the "cohort effect" within SFU has not been analyzed. And it should be.

-------

On this point, I would like to make a plea -- as we go forward with the motion approved at the SFUFA meeting --

The issue of certification (whether it ultimately succeeds or fails) does provide us with a valuable opportunity to connect with each other more, and to learn more about what it is like to work in different sectors of the institution, to be at different career stages, and to face different sorts of personal career-making realities. You may be quite happy with your salary and working conditions, but perhaps your happy situation is not solely the result of your brilliance and merit, but also partly an accidental effect of being in the right place at the right time?  Such are the vagaries of life. But you might be surprised to learn what others have experienced.

On Thu, Nov 7, 2013 at 9:38 PM, Anke Kessler <akessler@sfu.ca> wrote:

I'd just like to add to what Nancy said regarding a distorted comparison between Canada and the US.  Apart from the fact that private schools were left out of the study, and the 8 months versus 12 months yearly salary difference, there is likely to be a fairly large number of small community colleges in the US that included in the dataset and where academic salaries presumably are very low.

Moreover, the lower spread in salaries in the US relative to Canada cannot possibly be accurate….it's another anomaly that needs to be explained and points to a systematic selection bias in the units of observation, which makes the comparison meaningless.

Finally, the following quote caught my eye:

"None of us were economists, so we didn’t really know how to make sense of the data. And the data we got was pretty bad,” Mr. Altbach said.

Cheers!

Anke

Anke Kessler

On 2013-11-07, at 8:36 PM, Nancy Forde <nforde@sfu.ca> wrote:

> The comparison between the US and Canada caught my eye as well.  If you adjust for the 8- or 9-month (US) vs. 12-month (Canada) salary, then salaries are similar.  (I don't know how it is in all fields, but most research-based faculty in the sciences in the US are expected to obtain the rest of their salary through grants.)  Also, the article notes that the universities included in the survey are publicly funded, which automatically removes the likes of Harvard from the data set, thus resulting in lower salaries in all scales in the US data than likely would occur if private universities were included.  It is hard to say whether Canada is doing noticeably better than the US, or that we can use this as any sort of recruitment advantage, though with the state of funding in both countries, perhaps the 12-month salary does at least give us some edge.
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> Cheers,
> Nancy
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> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Martin Hahn" <mhahn@sfu.ca>
> To: "Neil Abramson" <nabramso@sfu.ca>, "SFUFA Forum" <academic-discussion@sfu.ca>
> Sent: Thursday, 7 November, 2013 20:08:37
> Subject: Re: Fwd: faculty salaries
>
> University systems and the value society places on them vary hugely around the globe. For us, the relevant comparison class is Canada, and then the United states - since SFU competes for academics largely on the North American market. It is surprising, if true, that Canadian salaries should be higher, on average, than US ones. Not so much so for entry level ones, but but for ones at the top.
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> Still, there are rather large differences between the US and Canadian systems. One is that US academics often (perhaps usually) only get paid for 8 or 9 months a year, have the summers off, and are free to take other employment then. The other is that there are huge differences in salaries between states and between institutions. Salaries at a state college in rural Alabama are likely to be half of what they are, say, Harvard or Washington University, St. Lewis. Differences on that scale simply do not exist in Canada. So the average salary is not very informative.
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> The question of where SFU fits, and where it ought to fit, on that spectrum is a really a difficult one to answer.
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> Martin
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> On 07/11/2013 7:19 PM, Neil Abramson wrote:
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> I received this today. It seems our salaries are pretty good compared to international rates. We may be plummeting versus salaries at other Canadian universities, but there's a long way to the very bottom.
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> All the best
> Neil
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> Sent from my iPhone
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> Begin forwarded message:
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> From: Gerardo Otero < otero@sfu.ca >
> Date: 7 November, 2013 11:26:27 AM PST
> To: Brian Green < brian_green@sfu.ca >, Neil Abramson < neil_abramson@sfu.ca >
> Subject: faculty salaries
> Reply-To: Gerardo Otero < otero@sfu.ca >
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> Dear Neil and Brian:
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> As you'll see in the article linked below, Canadian faculty wages seem to be the highest in the world on a purchasing-power parity.
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> http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/02/world/europe/02iht-educlede02.html
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> Thus, here's my interpretation of recent SFUFA surveys and yesterdays meeting: our members may actually be more interested in principles and values such as divesting from the oil industry and FAIRNESS in wages within Canada. That is to say, it is inaccurate to say that we are interested in salaries or money per se. What we don't like is that other people doing the same work as us are getting paid more. Perhaps it would be worth making this distinction, as evidently not many people were swayed by the trustees messenger about how costly it may be to have the option to divest from oil.
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> Great meeting yesterday, by the way!
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> Best, Gerardo
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