Faculty salaries remain fair but complex

By Matt Matros

Yale often sits accused of excessive concern over turning a profit. Oddly, questions of faculty salery have never entered into this debate.

"I think our salaries compare very favorably with those at other universities for the different ranks," Yale College Dean Richard Brodhead, BR '68, GRD '72, said. Norma Thompson, assistant professor of political science, concurred, "Yale's record is very good in comparison with other universities."

Yale divides its teaching staff into four categories: professor, associate professor, assistant professor, and lecturer. The figures provided by Director of Institutional Research John Goldin show that there is certainly an economic advantage to climbing the ladder of Yale faculty.

There is approximately a $15,000 gap in the mean salaries between associate professors and lecturers. The average salary for a professor is nearly two-and-a-half times that of a lecturer, and over $47,000 more than the pay of an associate professor.

These figures are not surprising. To consider the average salary, however, of a typical individual in each of Yale's faculty categories might be misleading, especially at the high and low ends.

According to Deputy Provost Charles Long, the lecturer position is a very encompassing rank, with lecturers ranging from recent graduate students who do not have Ph.Ds to distinguished faculty members who have years of experience and many distinctions.

"My primary responsibility is director of the graduate program in international relations. However, since I teach two economics courses for IR students, I have a joint appointment with the economics department. Because I am not laddered, this must be as a lecturer," lecturer William Rapp said.

"One has more freedom to pursue one's research interests while not facing the same pressures to publish or the six year `up-or-out' review crunch that agonize junior faculty. This multi-year contract system is preferable to me to the current tenure system and will probably actually permit me to stay at Yale much longer than I could if I were on the tenure track," Rapp continued.

Political science lecturer Jean Krasno typifies the complexity in pay of a Yale lecturer/administrator. She earns more for her two administrative positions, coordinator of the pivotal studies program for international security studies and associate director of UN studies, than she does for her position as lecturer.

Krasno, who teaches two classes in the Political Science department said that Yale's salaries match up extremely well. "This pay is a lot more than other places," she said. Krasno added that at Hunter College, where she worked as a lecturer and adjunct professor, lecturers earned "extraordinarily low salaries" to teach two or three courses per semester.

According to the provost's office, assistant professors at Yale make at least as much as the highest paid assistant professors at other institutions.

This becomes a great incentive for luring new faculty to Yale. Yale's high salaries trigger a cycle of hiring better and better instructors.

As more assistant professors get hired, the better the undergraduate education becomes. As the level of undergraduate instruction gets better, a larger, richer candidate pool applies for jobs.

Assistant Professor of mathematics Nantian Qian described himself as "very satisfied" with his salary. He added that his salary would not be a factor in any decision he might have to make about remaining as a member of the Yale faculty.

"I'm not unhappy with my situation, I'm just presuming that what salary I get is appropriate," Barry Saltzman, professor of geology & geophysics, said. "I'm happy with my situation, but that doesn't mean I think that the whole system is necessarily good," Krasno said.

Thompson added, "There are so many more important considerations to take into account--colleagues, students, the teaching situation, work opportunities for one's spouse, et cetera."

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