Academic Hierarchies: Let the Numbers Speak for Themselves (Part 2)

In today's Part 2 of my series on faculty salaries, I offer you a full picture of what the "average" English department looks like salary-wise at a public R1.

To recap from yesterday, the student newspaper at Grad University publishes an annual listing of all faculty and staff salaries. Since it is a public institution, the public has a right to this information, although the newspaper has received criticism for its practice in the past (coming, not surprisingly, form highly paid administrators) and has yet to publish listings for the 2010-2011 academic year. The numbers I'm sharing with you are from 2009-2010.

As I wrote yesterday, the faculty is comprised of 95 adjuncts, 10 assistant professors, 15 associate professors, and 28 full professors. This does not include graduate TAs, who do teach their own classes (as opposed to merely grading or leading discussions, both of which they also do), but they are not considered faculty by the university and, hence, their salaries (a.k.a. "stipends") are not included here. A great many of the 95 adjuncts are ABD grad students whose TAships have run out. Others are recent Ph.D.s who are holding out for something better. Still others are not-so-recent Ph.D.s who have given up on finding better positions but fear not being able to find ANY work outside of academe. As I mentioned before, at Grad University, all adjuncts teach not only "service" courses but many of the same courses taught by those on the tenure track -- which makes the salary differences you'll see below all the more appalling.

Before you look at the numbers, take note of the following:

• Salary Averages. For adjuncts and full profs, I've included both salary averages and adjusted averages. Among adjuncts, a small number, those listed as earning over $40K, are not paid on a semester-by-semester, course-by-course basis like the rest of us but have yearly renewable or multi-year renewable contracts. The department designates them "adjuncts" because they are not eligible for tenure, but they have additional, special titles, such as Director of Program X. Of course, with one exception, these are general ed writing programs (you don't get much credit for running those in comparison to running other kinds of programs that require less effort and time yet yield MUCH higher salaries, as you may remember from yesterday's post). I thought it fair to do a salary average WITHOUT them, which is the "adjusted average" for adjuncts. The "adjusted average" for full profs is the average without the highest three salaries, which surpass everyone else by $10K or more.
• Race and Gender. There are a few things about these salaries that relate both to adjuncts and more generally to academic hierarchies because they reflect the degree to which race and gender are "rewarded" unequally even in a department that prides itself on diversity. In such a department within a university that also prides itself on diversity, is it at all surprising that the three lowest paid full professors are African American? Of those, the two lowest paid are also female. The three highest paid full profs are white and male. Additionally, of the 15 profs making over $100K, only 5 are female. and of those 5, only one is nonwhite. This woman is also the only nonwhite prof of either sex earning over $100K. The most highly paid woman in the department earns $43,071.45 LESS than the most highly paid man. Lastly, given that the average adjunct earns, on average, more than $40K less than the average assistant professor, is it at all surprising that, of the 95 adjuncts, 64 of them -- an overwhelming majority -- are female?

So, without further ado, here are the numbers:
                 
                        Adjuncts   Asst Profs   Assoc Profs    Profs

Salaries	74,411.90	61,069.10	66,766.95	85,299.44
(in U.S. dollars)	15,976.00	60,940.81	64,958.33	104,219.07
	27,618.00	56,304.93	76,574.46	74,869.84
	42,000.00	67,148.03	68,844.51	95,491.30
	15,976.00	64,000.00	65,053.37	130,000.00
	31,953.00	58,598.52	69,730.66	104,560.53
	8,660.00	57,312.30	82,500.00	110,810.57
	36,441.63	59,707.06	81,102.61	92,018.09
	25,980.00	61,914.93	70,000.02	101,863.76
	17,320.00	57,000.00	62,805.22	79,698.16
	15,976.00		93,178.61	88,184.59
	8,660.00		92,885.73	121,142.78
	53,968.20		67,990.26	91,241.33
	3,994.00		108,513.38	150,074.32
	15,976.00		83,167.36	96,626.74
	17,320.00			116,711.83
	12,000.00			110,232.68
	18,412.00			97,374.81
	15,976.00			68,653.97
	15,976.00			96,000.55
	15,976.00			85,659.23
	23,964.00			90,250.45
	15,976.00			131,228.55
	23,964.00			66,174.04
	15,976.00			93,639.61
	17,320.00			114,958.29
	31,952.00			131,370.00
	15,976.00			175,200.00
	15,976.00			140,348.02
	15,976.00
	25,980.00
	36,824.00
	17,320.00
	7,988.00
	25,980.00
	27,618.00
	23,964.00
	15,976.00
	7,988.00
	23,964.00
	7,988.00
	23,964.00
	15,976.00
	23,964.00
	17,320.00
	27,618.00
	17,320.00
	15,976.00
	8,660.00
	18,412.00
	27,618.00
	18,069.00
	58,137.24
	3,267.80
	34,640.00
	25,980.00
	17,320.00
	15,976.00
	18,412.00
	33,296.00
	15,976.00
	17,976.00
	7,988.00
	15,976.00
	17,320.00
	31,952.00
	15,976.00
	15,976.00
	17,320.00
	17,320.00
	15,976.00
	17,320.00
	25,980.00
	15,976.00
	17,320.00
	15,976.00
	25,980.00
	18,412.00
	16,660.00
	36,824.00
	18,000.00
	17,320.00
	27,618.00
	15,976.00
	17,320.00
	36,824.00
	15,976.00
	17,320.00
	36,824.00
	36,824.00
	15,976.00
	27,618.00
	17,000.00
	23,964.00
	56,000.00
	Adjuncts	Asst Prof	Assoc Prof	Prof
Average	21,809.80	60,399.57	76,938.10	104,962.16
Adjusted Average	19,860.15			99,164.62