College Committees – Faculty Affairs – End of Year Report

Committee members:

  • Sara Luttfring, Chair (HSS)
  • Brian Boscaljon (BUS)
  • Luciana Aronne (SCI)
  • Grace Galinato (SCI)
  • Kyeiwaa Asare-Yeboah (ENG)
  • Sharon Gallagher (HSS)
  • David Beevers (ENG)
  • Eric Robbins (BUS)

Meetings: The committee conducted business through two Zoom meetings in the Fall, one Zoom meeting in the Spring, Teams sharing of documents, and emails. Our committee's subgroups also held meetings to work on individual charges.

Charges and Progress

Charge #1:

Compare Behrend faculty salaries across gender, school, and rank. Find out the criteria used at Behrend to give equity adjustments. Determine the extent that salary disparities exist and recommend possible changes to the salary structure. If possible, benchmark Behrend's salary structure with those of peer campuses such as Harrisburg and Altoona.

Progress with the charge: The subgroup for this charge consisted of Kyeiwaa Asare-Yeboah, David Beevers, Brian Boscaljon, Sharon Gallagher, and Eric Robbins. Representatives from the committee met with Pam Silver and Kim Paris to ask questions and gather data related to this charge (see Appendix A). One observation that came from this meeting was the fact that promotion raises for NTL faculty come from GSI, whereas promotion raises for tenure-line faculty come from UP central money. During this meeting, representatives also learned that the base raise for an NTL promotion at Behrend is around 4%. According to the University Senate Committee on Intra-University Relations and Faculty Affairs "Non-tenure-line Promotion Flow Report, 2020-2021," the average NTL promotion raise across the University was over 7%, with a minimum of 3.7% (). This puts Behrend near the absolute minimum, which our committee feels is cause for concern.

Our committee recommends advocating to have NTL raises centrally funded like tenure raises, which would result in more consistent promotion raises for NTL faculty as well as more GSI money available for equity and merit raises. We also recommend that Behrend's NTL promotion raises be increased to meet the University average.

Charge #2:

Review the statistics to determine the rate of tenure and promotion to associate professor and the rate of promotion of faculty to professor. Review statistics for both NTT and tenure-line faculty. How does this compare with other comparable Commonwealth Campuses? Suggest possible actions that can be implemented to increase the rates.

Progress with the charge: The subgroup for this charge consisted of Luciana Aronne, Grace Galinato, and Sara Luttfring. Representatives from the committee met with Kathy Bieschke, Ann Clements, and Abby Diehl in November 2021. Kathy noted that some of the information the subgroup requested might not be available, but said she would try to provide data regarding faculty retention and promotion. In April 2022, Kathy's office sent us data regarding non-tenure-line faculty, which can be found below (Appendix B). They are still working on gathering data on tenure-line faculty, so this charge might need to extend into next year.

Charge #3:

Compose a survey that determines: 1) what issues are critical to Behrend faculty, and 2) how faculty senate can be made more meaningful to Behrend faculty.

Progress with the charge: The committee composed and sent out the survey during the Fall 2021 semester. The survey results were disseminated and discussed during the Spring 2022 semester.

Additional Charges:

Provide feedback and support for revision of Behrend's Academic Integrity Policy to Sarah Whitney. Provide feedback on revisions to BCF 10 and BCF 24 to Pam Silver.

Progress with the charge: The committee discussed the revision of Behrend's Academic Integrity Policy and sent a statement of approval to Sarah Whitney. The committee provided detailed feedback on BCF 10 and BCF 24, and representatives of the committee met with Pam Silver in April 2022 to further discuss BCF 10.

Proposals for next year:

  • As noted above under Charge #1, our committee feels the current structure for determining NTL promotion raises requires attention. We feel that this issue should be an agenda item during the first Behrend Faculty Senate meeting where we may request that our University Senators advocate for central funding for NTL promotion raises. In addition, we should ask Behrend administration why Behrend's NTL promotion raises are not closer to the University average.
  • Our committee is concerned about the implications of recent budget cuts to hiring and contract renewals, particularly when it comes to NTL faculty. We feel that this issue should also be addressed during the first Behrend Faculty Senate meeting, and we would like to request transparent information about the 2023-2024 budget.
  • The committee should continue to work on Charge #2 as more information is received from Kathy Bieschke's office.
  • In our conversations with Pam Silver, she has indicated that Faculty Affairs will be tasked with revising BCF 10 during the 2022-2023 academic year, so we anticipate that being added to our list of charges.

Appendix A: Notes from Meeting with Pam and Kim on Zoom Friday, March 18, 2022, 3:30–4:30 p.m. David, Eric, and Sharon

  1. Do newly hired faculty start at a base rate or are there factors which influence starting salary? There is no one common base. There is a variety of factors which go into determining a faculty member's starting salary.
    • CUPA (College and University Professional Association) is used (enormous database to consult). The median salary is the starting place in this database.
    • Internal data is used in determining beginning salary
    • Prior experience - influences salary
    • Discipline being hired - varies strongly by discipline
      • School of Business has a database by discipline and rank
      • Nursing has their own salary guide, and it is geographic
    • Candidates may negotiate salary
  2. How are salary equity adjustments determined and made?
    • Individuals can raise equity concerns at any time through their school director.
      • The school director conveys these concerns to Kim.
      • HR will review the concern during the merit increase process. These adjustments come from the General Salary Increase (GSI) amount allotted to the campus for that year.
    • Is there a discipline/school which receives more frequent adjustments than others? No patterns noticed.
    • How often are salary equity adjustments made?
      • Adjustments are reviewed annually and occur during merit increase time
    • Is there a difference in the number and/or amount of adjustments made by faculty gender? No patterns noticed.
    • Is there a difference in number and/or amount of adjustments made by school/discipline?
      • Some faculty in a certain disciplines (ex. computer science and nursing) could receive an equity adjustment when a new faculty member is hired if that discipline has a high starting salary. The other faculty within that discipline would automatically be reviewed to determine if anyone would warrant an equity adjustment.
    • Is there a difference in number and/or amount of adjustments made by rank (NTL, TT, & T)? No patterns noticed.
  3. Is there one budget pool for all faculty merit raises, NTL promotion raises, and equity adjustments? Yes-GSI
  4. How are merit raises determined?
    • Merit raises are performance based with recommendations made by the school directors.
    • GSI funded. Amounts are based on what is left after the NTL promotions are awarded.
  5. Is there a base raise percentage for promotion and tenure?
    • What is the base raise for a faculty member who is awarded tenure?
      • Tenure raises are a separate funding which comes from UP central money.
      • Generally speaking, it is a consistent percentage (8%).
    • What is the base raise for a faculty member who is awarded a tenure promotion?
      • This money also comes from UP central money (6 - 8%)
    • What is the base raise for a NTL faculty member who is promoted?
      • NTL raises to either level are 4%
        • § The campus tries to be consistent with 4% but not always feasible because the money comes from GSI.
        • § It was expressed that across the University there is a desire that NTL raises should be centrally funded like tenure raises are.
        • § If NTL raises were centrally funded like tenured raises, there would be more GSI money available for equity and merit raises.
        • § Possible action for University Senators: advocate to have the University make this change since it would benefit all faculty at all campuses.
    • Is there a base raise difference for promotions among schools? Same across all schools

Appendix B: Summary of data pertaining to promotion of non-tenure-line faculty members (from Kathy Bieschke's office)

From academic years 2018-19, 2019-20, and 2020-21, there were 23 non-tenure-line faculty dossiers put forward for promotion at the Behrend campus and there were 19 - or 82.6% - promoted (one faculty member was promoted twice in the three-year period so there were 18 individual faculty who received a promotion). University-wide, over that three-year period, 482 non-tenure-line faculty went up for promotion and 443 - or 91.9% - were promoted. It is important to note that there is no 'promotion rate' for non-tenure-line faculty because (1) unlike tenure-line faculty, non-tenure-line faculty do not advance in a "cohort" and (2) the time period for promotion from rank to rank is not fixed (there is a suggested time period of at least five years for promotion from the first to the second rank but there is no suggested time period for promotion from the second to the third).

Of the 18 individual faculty at Behrend who were promoted, 5 were men and 13 were women. Regarding race/ethnicity, one identified as Asian, 16 as white, and one did not disclose a race/ethnicity. Demographic information for faculty who were not promoted was not collected for the 2018-19 year and demographic information for non-promoted faculty members during the other two years cannot be released due to small numbers.

Of the 18 faculty members promoted in the past three years, only 1 is no longer employed by Penn State Behrend.