For several years, the Adjunct Faculty Committee has argued that faculty who have taught here for a number of years deserve a higher pay scale than newly hired faculty. This year, we are pleased that the VPAA has initiated a long term plan to implement this objective. Currently, adjunct faculty who have taught 60 or more hours will get a small pay differential. The goal is to increase this differential in the next few years, then to add another tier, so eventually the pay scale tiers would be: Under 30 credit-hours, From 30 to 60 credit-hours, Over 60 credit-hours, with pay differentials of up to 20% or so.
We asked Dr. Johannes to clarify some details of the new salary experience-based pay scale. We are thankful for his response to queries about the new pay scales, which follows:
For the past seven years, we have sought to "regularize" and "systematize" the long-standing adjunct faculty rates that had developed, somewhat unsystematically, in the preceding fifteen
years. Included in this effort was clarifying the relationship between adjunct rates, on the one hand, and full-time faculty overload teaching rates and teaching rates for retired faculty, on the other. Another goal was to set a formula to recognize and accommodate the salary premium paid to those with the terminal academic degree and to those teaching graduate courses. Establishing and implementing that formula took some time, because it had to be done gradually, but it was fully implemented by the 2005-06 academic year.
Beginning with the current semester, fall, 2007, we are moving to adjust these adjunct salary scales to recognize and reward seniority and experience. The plan is the product of discussions with the Adjunct Faculty Committee and representatives of the Faculty Congress. Indeed, it had been explored ten or eleven years ago but was set aside in order to focus on the other adjunct salary rate issues.
The goal is to have a pay scale that (a) maintains the two salary premiums (for the terminal degree and for teaching graduate courses) and (b) recognizes and rewards seniority and experience while (c) acknowledging legitimate differences and adjunct faculty recruitment challenges that vary across the four colleges.
Establishing this system will take some time because we have to do so within the current budget constraints and without reducing or freezing for several years the compensation of existing faculy. Stage one of the process, which will probably take three years, is to establish two salary rate levels: the "base" level and the "senior" level of adjunct compensation. "Senior" adjunct faculty would be those who had taught a cumulative total of 61 or more credits at Villanova. The goal is to provide a 15- 20 per cent salary differential for "senior" adjunct faculty.
Stage two involves establishing the intermediate salary range (for those with 30 to 60 credits) between the "base" and the "senior" categories. This, too, will take a while to implement.
Specific questions that have been raised include:
(1) Are there differentials among the colleges? Yes, there are some small salary scale differences between the colleges that recognize "market realities" in recruiting and acknowledge some longstanding traditions in the different disciplines.
(2) Calculation of "seniority." All credits taught at Villanova, whether as an adjunct part-time faculty member or a full-time faculty member, and whenever taught, count toward the determination of the 60 credits needed for "senior" status.
Specifics are complex because we are dealing with four variables that interact simultaneously: (a) differences among the four colleges; (b) differences in terms of one's possession of the terminal degree; (c) differences between undergraduate and graduate teaching; and (d) differences between "base," "intermediate," and "senior" rates.
New Adjunct Faculty Salary Scale Reflects Value of Experience