Senator Larry Dann email: ldann@oregon.uoregon.edu, LCB - Finance, asked me to circulate the following memo to you regarding one of the resolutions on the agenda for the Special Senate meeting Wednesday, March 29th, at 3:00 in 177 Lawrence.

Gwen Steigelman
Secretary, University Senate
27 March 2000

To:UO Senate
From:Larry Dann, UO Senator, Lundquist College of Business
Re:US9900-7 Resolution regarding distribution of salary increases

The low level of faculty compensation at the University of Oregon relative to our peer institutions is a serious concern to many of us.  In order to be able to attract and retain high quality faculty, and also for faculty morale, the best interests of the University are served by remedying this situation as quickly as possible.  But I believe that US9900-7 Resolution regarding distribution of salary increases is not in the best interests of the University.  My reasons for this belief are listed below.

1.Departments or other academic units on campus should have the latitude to design a system for allotting salary money that best suits their situation.  Some departments or units have systems in place that their faculty and the provost have approved.  Unless the provost has an overriding reason to require that departments comply with a single campus-wide salary distribution system, departments should be treated as if they are capable of designing a system that works best for them.

2.Mandating that across-the-board increases come first, whether to keep pace with cost of living changes or for other reasons, impedes efforts to address changing comparator institution differentials and to adjust for lack of internal parity.  More generally, focusing on changes in current salary levels, rather than the salary levels themselves, elevates the existing distribution of salaries across faculty to an undeserved status.  The objective should be to get each faculty member's salary as close to "right" as possible.  By "right" I mean a salary that reflects (i) the faculty member's contributions to the University's mission, (ii) what the faculty member might be paid at peer institutions (competitive forces of the marketplace cannot be ignored), and (iii) parity across faculty members (e.g., if our target is 95% of parity to our comparator institutions, then each faculty member should be at 95% of the salary based on (i) and (ii)).  Putting severe restrictions on the distribution of changes from extant salary levels seems to presuppose that the existing distribution of salaries across faculty is close to "right."

3.Closely related to point 2 above, restricting the lion's share of salary raise money to a COLA distribution ties the hands of departments to recognize and reward differences in performance.
 Gwen SteigelmanAssistant Vice Provost for Academic AffairsUniversity of OregonPhone: 541-346-3028Fax: 541-346-2023