FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. (AP) - Pay raises over the last couple of years have brought the salaries of University of Arkansas professors closer in line with those of professors at similar schools.
Full professors at the University of Arkansas earned an average of nearly $128,950 over a 12-month period that ended in June, which was 1 percent less than the salaries at 12 similar public universities. Full professors at the university’s peer schools earned an average of about $130,270, the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reported.
The average University of Arkansas salary for full professors was about $121,590 in the 2016 fiscal year, which was 3.5 percent below the average at the 12 peer universities. The university’s faculty passed a resolution that year calling for the school to prioritize their pay raises, which had lagged behind administrators’ pay increases.
“I think we’ve made progress on these salaries,” said Chancellor Joe Steinmetz. “We have made it a priority.”
Full-time faculty yearly raises were 4.4 percent on average in fiscal 2018, while raises for mid-tier administrators were 3.1 percent, according to university data. Deans received average pay increases of 4.2 percent and top administrators saw raises of 2.2 percent on average.
Steinmetz said he told administrators that “they were not to give raises that were higher than the faculty received” and that this will be the policy going forward.
The university received about $8.2 million in new funding and reallocated about $5 million from administrative cuts, according to Steinmetz. He said $5.8 million of the total was designated for faculty and staff, “primarily in the form of our annual salary increases.”
“Investing in faculty and staff excellence isn’t just lip service, it’s where the bulk of our new and reallocated dollars went, as it was the last year before,” Steinmetz said.
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Information from: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, http://www.arkansasonline.com
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