Geneseo professors with similar credentials experience wage disparities between departments. This issue is widespread across the SUNY system.
The school has guidelines for pay for different position rankings, according to Assistant Vice President for Human Resources Julie Briggs.
The graph on the bottom features the average and median pay for full-time professors who teach in the School of Business, by rank. The graph on the top features the same data for full-time professors in the history, English and philosophy departments, by rank. The professors included in the data taught during the 2017-2018 academic year and the salary data comes from a public records request to the New York State Comptroller’s Office, dated Aug. 6, 2018. The data demonstrates an approximate $30,000 disparity between the disciplines (Malachy Dempsey/managing editor).
“If you were to look at market data for salaries of a business professor versus a history professor, you’re going to see a difference in what the market is paying,” Briggs said. “Discipline really comes into play when looking at salary.”
At times, the school may also pay more than the market price to remain competitive. Their ultimate goal is to attract faculty, Briggs said.
One main example of the wage disparity between departments is the gap in pay between professors of the same ranking in the history and business departments.
Dean of School of Business Mary Ellen Zuckerman explained that there have been proposed compromises to this issue.
“Some of the programs that produce these Ph.D.’s have looked at cutting back on the number of students they let into the program because they know they’re producing too many students for jobs,” she said. “On the flip side, I know in business disciplines they are always looking to try to recruit people to come in to do the Ph.D., but in business very often it’s hard to recruit students in because they have alternatives out in the market place. The disparities in the market lead to the disparities in salary.” While colleges across the nation often have this disparity, some feel as though this is also an issue on our campus specifically, especially when comparing the wages of professors here to other SUNY campuses.
Chair of the History Department Justin Behrend explains that the significant gaps in wages are not just between peers on campus, but between peers at other SUNY schools.
“There are comparable institutions within the SUNY system that historians here are paid significantly less than, that’s not a national problem because of the funding mechanisms of the SUNY system,” Behrend said. “One of the most important ways you’re recognized for your work is through compensation, and [when] we’re not fairly compensated or equally compensated it’s frustrating for a lot of faculty.”
The history department has suggested rectifying the gap in salaries on several occasions, but they have had no success, according to Behrend. Behrend explains that it has actually made hiring difficult, as Geneseo pays adjunct professors less than every other university and community college in the area.
“The president of the college has the discretion to set salaries,” Behrend said. “While the market may shape that, it’s up to each campus to decide what each professor’s worth, so it’s not something you can just blame on the national market.”
Some students are frustrated with the disparity as well, including history adolescent education major sophomore Simon Goslin. Goslin feels as though underpaying professors hurts his and other student’s education. It also is unfair to the professors who work hard, Goslin said.
“I think that using a national average isn’t exactly adequate or fair because if Geneseo’s an institution we want people to come to, we want to say we’re better than the national average, not just in terms of pay, but in terms of academic performance,” Goslin said. “I think an educational base in the humanities is important to wherever you want to go in life. I think paying professors adequately is one of the foundations of that.”