EAST CAROLINA UNIVERSITY

2004-2005 FACULTY SENATE

The third regular meeting of the 2004-2005 Faculty Senate will be held on Tuesday, November 9, 2004, at 2:10 in the Mendenhall Student Center Great Room. 

FULL AGENDA

  I.        Call to Order

 II.         Approval of Minutes

            October 12, 2004

III.         Special Order of the Day

            A.        Roll Call

            B.        Announcements

            C.        Steve Ballard, Chancellor

D.                Mike Lewis, Vice Chancellor for Health Sciences

            E.        Catherine Rigsby, Chair of the Faculty

            F.         Approval of the Fall 2004 Graduation Roster, including honors program graduates.

            G.        Brenda Killingsworth, Faculty Assembly Delegate

                         Report on the November 5, 2004, Faculty Assembly meeting.

            H.        Question Period 

IV.        Unfinished Business   

  V.      Report of Committees

            A.        University Curriculum Committee, Tim Hudson

Curriculum matters contained in the minutes of the October 14, 2004, and October 28, 2004, Committee Meetings. 

            B.        Continuing and Career Education Committee, Cal Christian

Proposed addendum to the Fall 2004 Student Opinion of Instruction Survey (attachment 1).

            C.        Committee on Committees, Henry Ferrell

Nomination of alternate members to the Faculty Grievance Committee, Grievance Board, and Hearing Committee (attachment 2).

            D.        Educational Policies and Planning Committee, Charles Hodson

                        For information only:

1.      Request for Authorization to Establish a new BA degree in Geology.

2.      Notification of Intent to Plan a new minor in Indigenous Peoples of the Americas.

3.      Changes in the MS degrees in Industrial Technology and Occupational Safety.

E.        Faculty Welfare Committee, David Lawrence

            Preliminary Faculty Salary Report (attachment 3).

VI.        New Business

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Attachment 1.

                        CONTINUING AND CAREER EDUCATION COMMITTEE REPORT

                     Proposed addendum to the Fall 2004 Student Opinion of Instruction Survey

The addendum would read as follows: 

“As you evaluate this course, please concentrate solely on the performance of the instructor

and NOT on any technological problems experienced during the semester. Course delivery

and/or network access technologies are NOT controlled by the instructor; as such, failures like

those experienced with Blackboard and/or network outage should NOT influence your

assessment of the instructor.“

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Attachment 2.

                        COMMITTEE ON COMMITTEES REPORT

Nominee for one Alternate position on the Faculty Grievance Committee 

John Cope, Department of Psychology

REGULAR MEMBERS (with vote)

ALTERNATE MEMBERS (with vote)

EX-OFFICIO MEMBER (with vote)

Nominee for one Alternate position on the Grievance Board 

Susan McCammon, Department of Psychology

REGULAR MEMBERS (with vote)

ALTERNATE MEMBERS (with vote)

Nominee for one Alternate position on the Hearing Committee 

Kevin Moll, School of Music

REGULAR MEMBERS (with vote)

ALTERNATE MEMBERS (with vote)

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Attachment 3.

FACULTY WELFARE COMMITTEE REPORT

Preliminary Faculty Salary Report

In response to Faculty Senate Resolution #04-10, Resolution on the Status of Faculty Salaries, Rick Niswander, Chair of Faculty, requested on March 11, 2004 that the Faculty Welfare Committee study sources of inequity, the extent of salary compression, promotional salary increase practices, and provide recommendations for the redress of inequities or problems.

Before discussing a measure of  salary compression at ECU, we would like to cite “Principles of Salary Adjustments,” July 11, 2003 from Gretchen Bataille, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs, UNC OP:

“Campuses must have a plan that allocates funds ……….to bring classes of faculty within the four ranks to market levels. For example, some campuses provide increases to recognize promotions and to maintain salary differentials among faculty ranks. Plans for salary adjustments must address a broad range of problems; salaries below external market value; salaries below internal market value; inequities resulting from the lack of reward for meritorious performance for several years; salary compression and inversion; and inequities that may exist for individuals or entire groups.

1. Salary Inversion: Over time and with the addition of new assistant professors at market salaries, it cannot be assumed that rank or length of service provide appropriate salary differentials. In recognition of rank and longevity, units need to consider how to restore the hierarchy of salary and rank (always with the recognition of the contributions of merit to disparities that might exist)
2. Salary Compression: Similar elements that contribute to salary inversion contribute to salary compression where differences between salaries in ranks are minimal. Similar analysis is needed in this area. Consideration might be given to a campus policy that provides a set increase ($2000-$4000) for promotion to associate and full professors as a means of maintaining salary differentials among faculty ranks.
3. Salary Depression: Statistics demonstrate that overall UNC salaries are lower than the 80^th percentile of each set of campus peers. Analysis must restore our competitiveness with the external market in recognition of the mobility of our best faculty. The other aspect of salary depression is that we must restore reasonable minimum salaries for all faculty in recognition of the need to provide a respectable salary for a full-time faculty position.”

Discussion:

The committee sees no simple way to define salary compression, since ECU seems to have no standard salary differential between the ranks. Salary inversion is far easier to define: When the mean salary for one rank in a unit is higher than the mean salary for the next superior rank, there is inversion. Given the comments made by Bataille, the only way the committee can see to investigate salary compression is to compare mean salaries by unit and rank with the same discipline at public  doctorate-granting universities in the US, or the group of peer universities for ECU. ECU also has a few units which have far greater differentials between ranks than the usual for US public doctoral

universities; such cases may be termed expanded salaries.  The committee also considered two other measures of compression: 1. Cases in which a professor in the lower rank has a salary above a professor in the same department at a higher rank.  The committee felt that this was not a useful way of defining compression. 2. Cases in which through time, the mean salary at one rank converges with the salary at another rank in the same unit. The committee has not attempted this, since the data do not seem to be  available in a form to make this practical.

Initial Conclusions and Further Committee Plans:

1. Salary compression, inversion, and expansion exist at ECU.

2. No final report can be issued until after salary figures for 2004-2005 can be compared to the Public- Doc standard or the Peer University standard.

3. The committee will survey the deans, in order to find out if there are policies on amounts of salary raises to be given on promotion.

4. The committee will write a proposed resolution for the Faculty Senate to consider.

The resolution will request the establishment of a university policy on inversion and compression, and an annual review and report by the Chancellor to the Faculty Senate.

Examples of Inversion, Compression, and Expansion

(All salaries are averages, 2003-2004 Comparisons)