|
|
Your AAUP-AFT has undertaken an analysis of how FASIP funds were distributed under the last contract. We prepared this analysis as part of our bargaining preparation and now we believe that sharing the information will assist you in understanding changes in the new contract, as well as in assessing how your individual professional growth and that of your colleagues relate to the FASIP process, now called "enhanced" salary increases under the new Faculty Compensation Program (FCP).
Linked from this page and described below are four tables:
1. FASIP by Number of Steps
2. FASIP by Gender, National Origin, and Rank
3. Non-Participants in FASIP by Gender, National Origin, and Rank
4. FASIP by Campus, Unit, and Department
Your union welcomes consideration of these data and of our initial analysis. Above all, we hope that the data will assist upcoming peer evaluation committee members, department chairs, and deans in making informed recommendations about “enhanced” salary increases.
Lisa Klein, Adrienne Eaton, and Rudy Bell
Below are links to the pdf files and a synopsis of the analysis for each table:
Table 1 - FASIP by Number of Steps
Table 1 shows award distribution by steps for the 2006-2007 distribution. Please note that steps are abolished in the new FCP. The data show two especially significant results.
1) A huge number of eligible Non Tenure-Track Faculty received no steps at all. Were they overlooked, or slated for termination, or were their accomplishments deemed not worthy of monetary recognition? The union was not successful during negotiations in achieving a separate pool of money for NTTs. We urge Peer Evaluation Committees to consider carefully the eligible NTTs in their units; unless they are grant funded, these colleagues share in the same monetary pool as tenured and tenure-track faculty.
2) At the other end of the award spectrum, assistant professors did best among the recipients of 10-steps, the maximum allowed under the former program. The new contract raises considerably the maximum possible awards, a flexibility that the union urges should be addressed primarily to persons with lower salaries, at lower ranks, and caught at the wrong end of salary inequities.
Table 2 - FASIP by Gender, National Origin, and Rank
Table 2 displays awards from 2006-2007 in percentage terms, which is how the "enhanced" portion of the new FCP program will work from the outset, broken down by national origin, gender, and rank. The base number against which to judge all these percentages is 3.58%, which is the amount required by the contract in 2006-2007. Findings for groups with very small numbers can be distorted by a single outlier at either end of the distribution and, thus, should be used with caution. Overall, we note that:
1) Women receive higher percentages than men but against this finding must be set the lower overall average salaries of women.
2) Differences by national origin are either not great or are in groups too small for solid conclusions. Not withstanding these caveats, the relatively poor results for African-American men merits attention.
3) Differences by rank are significant. Once again, NTTs stand out for how much less they receive than any other rank. Among the tenured and tenure-track, size of awards decreases as rank increases, which is associated with average salary increases by rank. In short, the FASIP process (renamed in the new contract as “enhanced”) moderately tends to decrease salary differences, relative to across-the-board salary increases, with the notable exception of NTTs who get left out of the process or do not receive awards.
Table 3 - Non-Participants in FASIP by Gender, National Origin, and Rank
Table 3 replicates the analysis of Table 2 by national origin, gender, and rank for faculty who opted not to be considered at all within the FASIP process. Among this group there are some altruists who may have been anticipating retirement or who for other reasons chose to leave the division of unit salary monies among others. There may also be a few faculty who simply did not wish to be evaluated by their colleagues and deans, for any number of reasons. But the largest number of opt-outers were potentially eligible NTTs. Why did they opt out? Was this a voluntary decision based on full knowledge of their right to participate, or was it somehow coerced, or was it a realistic assessment that under their unit’s criteria they would have no chance in the process? We simply do not know with certainty. However, your negotiators worked from the available anecdotal evidence and decided to push (successfully) for the elimination of the contractual option to opt out because we concluded that the provision seemed to be working unfairly against NTTs. In the new contract, everyone must be considered. Individual altruists may still informally tell their department chair or unit head that they do not wish to receive an “enhanced” award, a wish that can be respected, but NTTs should not appear in the future in large numbers among those who “opt out.” In fact, the category should not appear at all, except perhaps as a footnote to explain why some persons were recommended for no “enhanced” salary increase.
Table 4 - FASIP by Campus, Unit, and Department
Table 4 focuses on the distribution of FASIP monies by campus, unit, and department. Here it is that we see whether some units did significantly better overall than other units. Caution is in order in comparing results for units where the “N” is small, and inevitably in what amounts to a zero-sum game, a fuller glass in one place means less in another. One force at work stems from the fact that initial allocations are by number of faculty lines, not total salary dollars, and this pattern seems to continue as allocations flow downward on each campus to the units. In short, departments with lower average salaries may tend to have a higher percentage of FASIP to distribute. Another factor is that units where significant numbers of NTTs are not receiving FASIP awards fuel higher awards for the tenured and tenure-track faculty in those units, who share the monetary pool among themselves. Finally, decanal, provostial, and presidential awards – which collectively constitute 20% of the total monetary pool – are a factor in explaining why one department or unit “does better” than another.
|
|
|
