Although faculty salaries were raised 3.6 percent last year, the MSU Board of Trustees soon will receive a recommendation to raise salaries again — by 5.5 percent this time.
The recommendation is made annually by the University Committee on Faculty Affairs, one of the standing committees in MSU's Academic Governance system.
This year, one of the main goals of the committee is to improve the ranking of MSU within the Big Ten. Currently, the university is in ninth place out of the conference's 11 schools. With an average faculty salary of $87,573, MSU dropped from the eighth position, which it held for the last several years, Cathy Ernst said.
"We feel that it is important for us to at least try to be somewhere in the middle of the Big Ten, and that's been our goal for a number of years," said Ernst, an associate animal science professor and co-chairperson of the committee.
However, university and state budgetary constraints will play a role in the decision to raise salaries, said Robert Banks, associate provost for academic human resources.
According to a memorandum the committee presented to both the Faculty Council and Academic Council, 4.5 percent will "match anticipated average Big Ten increases for 2007-2008" and the additional 1 percent will "narrow the gap between existing MSU salaries and the mid-point of the Big Ten."
Northwestern University holds the top position in the Big Ten, with the average salary being $119,249. At the bottom of the rankings is Purdue University, which has an average faculty salary of $86,231 — $1,342 less than MSU.
"We work in a national market for faculty talent," Provost Kim Wilcox said. "We're competing with places like Stanford and Illinois for the brightest and best, and we're a little below most institutions right now. People who can pay better salaries get the best."
Banks said the recommendations will first go to the provost, then to the president and finally will be presented to the MSU Board of Trustees for consideration as they work through the university's budget.
"The budget situation in the state is very uncertain for this year, both in dealing with the state budget and the year that is coming up in October," Banks said. "That's going to be a major variable in a whole range of financial decisions the university makes, so it will be very hard to predict (action) at this point."
An increase in faculty salaries also is a variable in any possible tuition increase for students, Banks said.
"There is no direct one-to-one relationship between tuition and faculty salary increases," he said. "It's obviously impacted by the amount of revenue the university has available, which comes not only from student tuition but from an appropriation from the state."
The recommended increase, while it may play a role in rising tuition costs, may benefit students overall, Wilcox said.
"If we're not competitive, we don't have anything of value to offer students," Wilcox said. "Students come to MSU for world-class education, and to provide that, we need to have world-class faculty."
In light of the impending budget crisis in Michigan, Ernst said the committee understands current financial restrictions.
"We are very sensitive to, and we recognize, the fiscal constraints that are faced by MSU and the state of Michigan," she said.
"And we realize that it will be a challenge for the board to make the fiscal decisions they need to make. But we also feel that what we propose is reasonable and something that should be considered."
Sarah Harbison can be reached at harbiso9@msu.edu. Staff writer Colleen Maxwell contributed to this report.
