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MU faculty discuss salary increase at senate meeting

Ben Garbarek

Several Miami University faculty members expressed concern over their salary increases at Monday's university senate meeting.

During a financial report from Richard Norman, senior vice president for finance and business services and treasurer, several faculty members became upset about the 3 percent increase budgeted for faculty salaries, arguing that the raise is not enough to attract and retain new faculty.

"I've heard time and time again that our first priority is faculty salaries but I've yet to see it actualized," said Richard Momeyer, a Miami philosophy professor at the meeting. "But then again, I've only been here 39 years."

Momeyer isn't the only one disappointed.

"Our real income is going down," said physics professor William Houk. "That's not an encouraging sign for our ability to attract and hold new faculty for any length of time. I'm very concerned that we have seen ourselves slip behind the rate of inflation over the past 10 years."

Houk said that faculty at Miami receive about $3,000 to $4,000 less a year because of the increased expenses and rising inflation.

Houk explained that while the average faculty salary has gone up, newer professors have been given higher salaries starting out, while existing professors have been given insufficient raises. He said Miami is able to attract new faculty with good starting salaries, but retaining these faculty may become a growing problem.

"We don't do badly with starting salaries," Momeyer said. "It's compensating those that are here that get squeezed."

Momeyer said that the growing costs of working at Miami have increased at a faster rate than his salary.

"I pay more for parking, health insurance and dental insurance," he said. "But there are more students and not more faculty, so I get more work and less compensation."

Houk has experienced a similar problem.

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"My take-home salary is now less than it was three years ago and I've gotten raises," he said.

Houk said Miami's financial situation isn't as dire as some may believe.

"We keep hearing about how tight the budget is and that we need to save money," he said. "But at the end of the year we have a $14 million surplus."

Provost Jeffery Herbst admitted that Miami has serious financial challenges.

"We'd like to give higher increases," he said, "but (the 3 percent increase) was the most we could afford."

Both Momeyer and Houk blamed former Miami President James Garland's aggressive building for the strain on the university budget.

"We have a lot of brick stuff between the ice arena, psychology building and engineering building," Houk said. "We're a lot further in debt the last 10 years."

Momeyer also blames the state government for these budget issues.

"The state is not lavishly supporting higher education like they used to," he said.

Houk has also seen a larger burden placed on students because of smaller amounts of money coming to Miami from Columbus.

"State subsidies were about 50 percent when I first started here (34 years ago), now it's under 10 percent," Houk said. "All the increases are from you (and your tuition), that's why it's so expensive."

And unfortunately for college students throughout Ohio, Houk doesn't see the situation getting any better.

"Things at the state level won't get better, they won't support higher education like they used to 20 to 30 years ago," he said. "It might even get worse. Tuition is going to go up. The question is how fast."

Herbst said the 3 percent increase is only for the current fiscal year but another 3 percent increase is tentatively projected for next year as well.


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