State, Land Grant Schools Raise Life Science Faculty Pay

[Editor's Note: This is the first installment in a two-part series, to be continued in the Nov. 12, 1990, issue of The Scientist. This article deals with the salaries of state university and land grant college faculty in the life sciences; next's month's article will discuss the salaries of faculty in the physical sciences at these institutions.] Most of the institutions belonging to the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges boosted annual pay for their life sciences faculty in 1989, according to the latest annual faculty survey of these schools. Officials at several of these institutions say they were spurred to increase faculty salaries by the need to compete with industry for basic research talent. Released earlier this year, the survey examined 1989 salaries of state university faculty as well as those of faculty at land grant colleges (institutions originally set up by government grants to teach agriculture). Responses were received from 83 schools nationwide. Representing 86,765 faculty members, administrators at the schools responded on behalf of their professors, associate professors, assistant professors, and instructors. The study found that faculty receiving salary increases at these institutions spanned a variety of fields, from an 8 percent hike given anatomy professors to a 4.7 percent raise for microbiology professors and a 5.8 percent gain reaped by genetics professors. And except in some areas where schools were hampered by government-imposed budget constraints, faculty pay increased at state universities and land grant colleges in most regions of the country. Officials at many of these institutions use the survey as a basis for setting faculty pay. Administrations read this [report] because it gives them a feeling for what's being paid in the field, says Lee Tarrant, a senior research analyst at the Department of Institutional Research at Oklahoma State University in Stillwater, who compiled the results. Most salary systems are [established] by rank, so comparisons also taken between specific disciplines are very meaningful, says Tarrant. The annual survey tallies salary trends for more than 250 academic disciplines. In the life science disciplines in which faculty pay increased, salaries generally rose at or above the inflation level. This was in keeping with the overall trend among educational institutions to provide cost-of-living adjustments. In some cases, we're combating inflation, says James A. Mac-Mahon, dean of the College of Science at Utah State University in Logan. We have a great need for catch-up salaries. But he also says the salary hikes reflect more conventional imbalances in supply and demand, particularly in areas that have contributed to the growth of biotechnology in the commercial marketplace. These academic disciplines include genetics and molecular biology. Industry has a great need for these people, and many states have made large sums of money available to attract these people, says Mac-Mahon. There's just been a terrific emphasis placed on biotechnology. We're feeling the pinch because we don't get as many applicants for available positions since the booming biotech industry began to siphon off potential candidates in the early 1980s. Says John Mosley, vice president of research at the University of Oregon in Eugene: Pharmacology has always been an industry. Now, we've got a whole new industry being built around the ability to manipulate molecules. So there's an increased demand for faculty in life sciences because of the revolution in molecular biology and genetics. This is a very rapidly moving field, and most of it's happening at the basic research end. That puts demand in the market for scientists and faculty who understand that. For example, full professors of genetics, including human and animal studies, got a 5.8 percent salary increase last year, boosting their pay to an average of $61,283, nationwide. Associate professors of genetics received 9.5 percent increases, to $42,616. And while veteran assistant professors of genetics received about the same pay as the year before $35,300 according to the survey, newly hired assistant professors garnered starting salaries that were 4.5 percent higher, or $36,955. Salary gains were not limited to any one region of the country. In the Northeast and Midwest, full genetics professors were paid an average salary of $64,873, an 8.4 percent increase. The smallest regional gain was recorded in the Western states, where the salary rose an average of 2.7 percent, to $57,200. One possible explanation for the regional differences is that, with the likely exception of California, many of the smaller schools in the Western half of the nation can't afford to pay higher salaries, according to Oklahoma State's Tarrant. These insti-tutions' relative lack of wealth tends to dampen the overall average, too, he explains. Indeed, the average salary paid full molecular biology professors actually dropped 11 percent last year, to $52,939 nationally. But that was attributed to salary declines in the Western states, where the average pay was $48,950. The University of Oregon's Mosley says that his school's salaries are about 25 percent below national averages. We've had serious salary problems, he said. However, in the Northeast and Midwest, the average salary for full professors of molecular biology was up 16.8 percent, to $63,800. Schools in the Central Plains states, including Kansas, Nebraska, and Iowa, as well as Texas and Louisiana, distributed 24.4 percent pay hikes, to $60,500, on average. But some university administrators in the West hope that the pay differentials may soon narrow. From the standpoint of economic development, the state of Oregon has had a big push in these areas for the last four to five years, says Ralph Sunderland, budget director at the University of Oregon. The state is trying to stimulate the movement of industry to Oregon, and part of the money has been used to hire more people in such areas as cell and molecular biology and general biology, he says. Edward R. Silverman is a staff reporter for New York Newsday.

State, Land Grant Schools Raise Life Science Faculty Pay

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