Senate Reference No. 07-13

Response to Senate Reference 07-12

1.  The “peer institutions” used in the College and University Personnel Association (CUPA) salary surveys are those institutions which respond to the survey each year.  The 2006-07 survey results, which are the most recent currently available, were based on the following respondent pool:

                                                            Public               Private  Total

Doctoral Institutions                                  95                   41                  136

Master’s Institutions                                179                 188                  367

Bachelor’s Institutions                               44                 198                  242

Specialized Institutions                              13                   66                    79

These institutions reported data for 137,523 faculty members at public institutions and 67,685 faculty members at private institutions, for a total of 205,208.

CUPA also reports the average salary increase percentage for the year.  For public, master’s institutions, the 2006-07 salary averages increased by 3.9%.

2.  The results of the survey are presented in terms of average salary by rank, separately by type of institution, for each discipline code, using the national Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) taxonomy.  The following is an example, using the Public Institutions category, discipline of Accounting:

                        Professor                                      $104,852

                        Associate Professor                       $ 88,128

                        Assistant Professor                        $ 76,489

                        New Assistant Professor                $ 81,667

                        Instructor                                        $50,476

Note: The “example” in SR 07-12 uses a format and data set that CUPA has not used since at least 1992.

The final step in assembling the national data for IPFW is to adjust the CUPA numbers by a percentage that will change them from “last year’s” (2006-07) average salaries to “this year’s” estimated average salaries.  The increment factor chosen for this year’s adjustment was 3.0%, so the estimate for a professor in the example above would be $107,998.

Using this data for comparison with a hypothetical IPFW professor of accounting would produce the following conclusion about the individual’s salary in 2007-08:

                        Current Salary (hypothetical) $100,000

                        National Salary                             $107,998

                        Difference                                       -$7,998             - 8.0%

The entire process is repeated each year so that comparisons reflect the best available data.

3.                     Vice Chancellor Hannah will address this question.

4.                     Each year’s CUPA data is provided to the deans and placed “on reserve” in the library.

5.                     CUPA data are reviewed for reasonableness through comparisons with AAUP data each year.  CUPA data are regularly found to be higher than AAUP averages for public master’s universities because of the mix of CUPA respondent institutions.  Thus, AAUP data provide a better benchmark for all-campus averages. 

However, CUPA provides the only national set of discipline-based data and also provides this data separately for public and private institutions.  Indiana averages by discipline are not available.

Comparisons with salary surveys conducted by discipline-based organizations like AACSB are considered when they are available.  They are usually are based on a significantly different mix of institutions, making them less reliable as a basis for comparison.