UNC is falling behind its peers, including Duke University, in faculty salaries.
The chart below from the American Association of University Professors shows that:
- Since 2010-11, average faculty salaries at UNC have fallen steadily – from sixth in the nation among our public and private peer universities to 11th, 12th and even 13th place.
- Not only do we lag behind private universities like Duke, we also now trail public universities such as Virginia, Texas and Michigan.
- The gap in actual dollars has grown dramatically.
In 2010-11, the average faculty salary at UNC was $109,200, compared to $138,100 at Duke. This year, the gap has more exploded by more than double: $138,200 at UNC compared to Duke’s $213,300.
Our average salary today is where Duke’s was in 2010-11.
This decline has come since a change in political control of the North Carolina General Assembly in 2010.
It is concerning, because the quality of our faculty determines the quality of the University and the quality of education that students receive.
Pay, of course, is not the only factor in recruiting and retaining excellent faculty members.
But, at the same time salaries have been lagging, faculty members at UNC have found themselves increasingly shut out of key academic decisions, such as the establishment of the School of Civic Life and Leadership.
And outside interference by trustees and legislators has exploded.
UNC fans like to see our athletic teams ranked in the top 10.
We should demand to see our faculty in the top 10 in salaries, respect and shared governance.
I wonder where these figures come from. If you look in the Chronicle, UNC-CH average faculty salary is listed as $125,543, with men’s average salary being $139,965 and women’s $109,971. There is no way that our average salaries are higher than UC Berkeley’s, and if you look in the CHE all of the UC’s (except UC Merced) are significantly higher than what’s listed for UNC-CH. Our salaries are terrible. I cannot believe we are even in the top 25, and that’s just among publics. Putting us at #11 and including private schools like Duke and Johns Hopkins makes our situation look vastly better than it is.
We received this information from AAUP (https://data.aaup.org/fcs-ft-faculty-salaries/) they report compiling this salary information from The Bureau of Economic Analysis, US Department of Commerce.