For the first time in eight years, faculty salaries did not rise in comparison to the rate of inflation, a study by the American Association of University Professors recently reported. While salaries grew 2.8 percent this year—up from the 2.1 percent increase the year before—the rate of inflation reached 3.3 percent, resulting in a real salary decrease.
At Duke, associate professors experienced the greatest salary increase, 4.8 percent, while full professors were granted a 2 percent increase and assistant professors’ salaries rose 1.2 percent.
The AAUP report, which surveyed 1,416 institutions of higher education—including Duke—also analyzed salary distribution according to gender. At community colleges, the report found salaries are about equal. At doctoral institutions, however, women only earn 80 percent of what their male counterparts earn on average.
In order to limit unequal salary distributions at Duke, the Faculty Compensation Committee, in conjunction with the Office of the Provost, issues an equity report every other year, analyzing the salary differences by race and gender. According to the 2004-2005 equity report, in general there is no evidence of significant disparities.
A substantial difference exists at the level of assistant professors in Arts and Sciences, however. “Male assistant professors in Arts and Sciences seem to earn statistically significantly more than their female counterparts ($66,557, compared to female assistant professors $60,734),” the report stated.
This variance can be largely attributed to differences in male and female earnings in social sciences, where, on average, male assistant professors earn $70,487 and female assistant professors earn $60,633, according to the equity report.
Despite these statistics, Duke officials are confident there is no significant difference in men’s and women’s salaries after taking into consideration rank, department and length of service.
“The averages are meaningless since they vary so much by department,” Provost Peter Lange said.
Michael Lavine, chair of the Faculty Compensation Committee, also stressed the importance of evaluating distinct academic fields when determining salary disparities. “Men and women tend to be in different departments,” he said. “There is no statistical evidence of significant salary differences for people in the same rank and department.
“The differences could’ve been by chance; they could’ve been random,” added Lavine, an associate professor in the Nicholas School of the Environment and Earth Sciences.
George McLendon, dean of the faculty of Arts and Sciences, was surprised by this inequality. “How much of it is gender and how much of it is field, I just don’t know,” he said. “But it highlights something many of us are quite concerned about. Even with us working to remedy this, historically women are underrepresented in some of the most quantitative disciplines—and some of those fields tend to be more highly compensated.”
But McLendon also noted that in contrast, women may receive a higher salary in certain areas. “There might be a very slight bias in favor of female recruits because they were in slightly higher demand,” he said, pointing specifically to the economics and mathematics departments.
The AAUP report, however, did not turn to differences in disciplines and highest degree earned to explain why female professors may have lower salaries. “Such an ‘explanation’... really begs further questions,” the report stated. “Why is it that the disciplines in which women faculty predominate tend to be lower paid?”
In addition to analyzing the potential role of gender, the Duke equity report analyzed differences based on race but did not find statistical differences. According to the University report, “Overall, there is no significant difference in annual earnings between Caucasian and minority professors at each rank level across all divisions.”
In comparing salaries, however, both the AAUP and Duke reports warn of overgeneralization, pointing to major salary differences depending on the school’s rank. Specifically, professors in the Fuqua School of Business and the School of Law receive the highest salaries, followed by professors in medicine, engineering and social sciences. Divinity and humanities professors earn the lowest salaries.
Nationally, AAUP found the average salary for all professors to be $68,505. At Duke, the average salary for a full professor is $131,200. The average salaries for an associate professor and assistant professors are $89,500 and $75,500, respectively, according to the national AAUP Faculty Salary Survey.
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