Salary info

[Dreamer_D]

I actually think it would be a lot easier for people on the job market if the salaries were more standardized. As it is, when you are in negotiations it is very stressful because you are going in blind in many cases. If you do not have another offer, or you do not have another offer from an equivalent school, then trying to figure out if you are ebing given a fair or low-ball offer is near impossible.

Something I did not do that I wish I had done was contacted my schools faculty association, or union if that is what you have. If you have an offer in hand, the faculty association will prepare a document for you that shows the salaries of recent hires including their credentials (some anyways) and it is a good bargaining tool. I did not know about this and thus missed that information. Luckily, I feel that I got a good offer. BUT a friend of mine did not get comps and found out years later that she was being underpaind relative to people who were hired one year later with worse qualifications by an astonishing $10k per annum. Luckily, her school and some others have an appeals process that allows underpaid faculty to request an adjustment, and she got it, but her salary is still not as high as it should be. Your starting salary determines SO much because raises are generally percentages each year and so a difference at the start of even $1000 can result in a wage deficit of hundreds of thousands over the course of your career.

I found out recently too that I can now request from my faculty association comps for my position, the salaries of other people of my rank. I am not sure whether I should look into it or not If I am underpaid there is little recourse but to seek another job and use that offer to leverage more money out of my university, and that is not appealing. But it is one of the only ways to get a substantial raise, the system basically forces academics to seek other employment and rpove their value.

 

[Dreamer_D]

Oh GOOD Dreamer--I didn't think you were arguing with me, I just thought that MY pontificating came across wrong.
I think all of these threads about everything that's wrong with PS have me worried that I come across as snarky or edgy, when really most of my posts are just rambles of my inner thoughts.
Anyway, I just didn't want there to be any misunderstanding. I am so interested in all of this, I really appreciate reading your posts about it.

P.S. I ran my first 5K today. I thanked you for being my inspiration in the running thread, but just in case you don't see it: Thank you! It was so much fun.

Mayerling--I PROMISE this is my last derailing post in your thread.

And that's why I think those threads are silly and pointless, it just makes people too self-aware... haha... that is my going back the to "Old PS" right there

And woo hoo about running! I have not been running since getting pregnant as I am too tired but I need to start again, it is terrible.

END threadjack! Sorry!

 

[katamari]

Mayerling, I don't want to be Debbie Downer here, but I do want to strongly suggest you and your FI check out the Chronicle of Higher Education's forums and websites (which Haven linked you to). It sounds like you could possibly be a bit unfamiliar with the US higher education system, and you should better know what you/your FI are getting yourself into. My complete and sincere apologies if you do know some of the things I am going to say.

Salaries vary wildly by field. In my U, salaries are available on a public database. I am a social scientist and I make half of what a new business professor makes. However, I also make about 25% more than what the other new humanities professors makes.

Tenure track positions in the US tend to have anywhere between 300-800 applicants per position. This makes it very difficult to even get an interview, let alone a job. In my field, one would have to have 3-5 publications in high-impact journals, several conference publications, and excellent letters of recommendations to even make the shortlist at a UC school. In some fields, you will also have to attend their annual conference if you make the short-list for the first round of interviews. If you do not, you could be ruled out as a candidate. Coastal schools also get twice as many applications, generally, than do middle-America schools, meaning they are much more competitive. The state of California is also having quite serious budget problems, which seems to concern many people who work in higher education (for more on this, see the Chronicle).

Positions here are highly specialized. Universities have to have their searches approved by the President, Dean, and Provost. To do this, the department must provide a detailed plan for what the new hire will do and variation is unlikely. Thus, job ads are very specific and the search committee has a very distinct vision of what they are looking for. Unless you match the job ad, you will only be considered if you are an amazing superstar (which I am sure both you and your FI are!).

One gets hired for the academic year in a tenure-track position. This is likely non-negotiable unless you have a really, really good reason (read: won a terribly prestigious post-doc). You would interview this year and be hired to start 2011-2012. If your FI or you were to try to negotiate for a later start date because you are getting married (or for any reason other than a terribly prestigious post-doc) you would honestly probably annoy and offend the search committee.

Spousal hires are so incredibly rare. I know you mention that you and your FI are looking earlier on, and then later mention that it may just be your FI. To negotiate a spousal hire, both candidates have to be unbelievable superstars. Even then, I would say you might stand a 1% chance of getting one. And, unless the school is very wealthy, they are highly unlikely to have the money available for a partner hire. My institution, for instance, could never offer a spousal hire anything more than a class or two as an adjunct (a couple thousand a semester, no job security, no benefits) and even that is rare.

As for the 9-month salary. This is basically just an HR phrase to ensure that you only teach for 9 months. If you teach summer classes, you will be compensated beyond your salary. The availability for a summer class will vary by institution; norms within the department will dictate whether or not you could teach summer if available.

Again, I am not trying to discourage you or your FI. I also apologize if you know all this information. I just know, as a job candidate who applied internationally myself last year (but got hired nationally), the more you know about the system, the more effectively you can work it.

 

[mayerling]

Mayerling, I don't want to be Debbie Downer here, but I do want to strongly suggest you and your FI check out the Chronicle of Higher Education's forums and websites (which Haven linked you to). It sounds like you could possibly be a bit unfamiliar with the US higher education system, and you should better know what you/your FI are getting yourself into. My complete and sincere apologies if you do know some of the things I am going to say.

Salaries vary wildly by field. In my U, salaries are available on a public database. I am a social scientist and I make half of what a new business professor makes. However, I also make about 25% more than what the other new humanities professors makes.

Tenure track positions in the US tend to have anywhere between 300-800 applicants per position. This makes it very difficult to even get an interview, let alone a job. In my field, one would have to have 3-5 publications in high-impact journals, several conference publications, and excellent letters of recommendations to even make the shortlist at a UC school. In some fields, you will also have to attend their annual conference if you make the short-list for the first round of interviews. If you do not, you could be ruled out as a candidate. Coastal schools also get twice as many applications, generally, than do middle-America schools, meaning they are much more competitive. The state of California is also having quite serious budget problems, which seems to concern many people who work in higher education (for more on this, see the Chronicle).

Positions here are highly specialized. Universities have to have their searches approved by the President, Dean, and Provost. To do this, the department must provide a detailed plan for what the new hire will do and variation is unlikely. Thus, job ads are very specific and the search committee has a very distinct vision of what they are looking for. Unless you match the job ad, you will only be considered if you are an amazing superstar (which I am sure both you and your FI are!).

One gets hired for the academic year in a tenure-track position. This is likely non-negotiable unless you have a really, really good reason (read: won a terribly prestigious post-doc). You would interview this year and be hired to start 2011-2012. If your FI or you were to try to negotiate for a later start date because you are getting married (or for any reason other than a terribly prestigious post-doc) you would honestly probably annoy and offend the search committee.

Spousal hires are so incredibly rare. I know you mention that you and your FI are looking earlier on, and then later mention that it may just be your FI. To negotiate a spousal hire, both candidates have to be unbelievable superstars. Even then, I would say you might stand a 1% chance of getting one. And, unless the school is very wealthy, they are highly unlikely to have the money available for a partner hire. My institution, for instance, could never offer a spousal hire anything more than a class or two as an adjunct (a couple thousand a semester, no job security, no benefits) and even that is rare.

As for the 9-month salary. This is basically just an HR phrase to ensure that you only teach for 9 months. If you teach summer classes, you will be compensated beyond your salary. The availability for a summer class will vary by institution; norms within the department will dictate whether or not you could teach summer if available.

Again, I am not trying to discourage you or your FI. I also apologize if you know all this information. I just know, as a job candidate who applied internationally myself last year (but got hired nationally), the more you know about the system, the more effectively you can work it.

Thanks for all the info, Katamari.

You're right, I'm not very familiar with US academia, but FI is. He was born and raised in the US and got his degree at one of the UCs. We were just wondering about salary because I would probably be unemployed if we moved to the US (we're aware of the two-body problem and are just looking for him), and we need to know whether we could manage on just one salary. And precisely because it's so hard to get a tenure-track position, and there's so much to prepare in order to apply, we thought we'd first find out whether we could live if he got it before going through the trouble of applying.

So even though the salary is quoted for nine months, the hired person will still be paid for 12?