Salary info

[mayerling]

Hi everyone,

Does anybody know what the starting salary for assistant professor in the California UCs? FI and I are looking to apply for jobs there and are trying to figure out whether it would be a good move moneywise.

Thanks!

 

[Porridge]

This is 3rd hand info, but I heard 90k. This was in the business dept, and it was 2 yrs ago.

 

[Haven]

This is 3rd hand info, but I heard 90k. This was in the business dept, and it was 2 yrs ago.

Don't we wish!

Looks like $53,200 at step 1 for an asst prof.

Here's a link to the UC current salary scale, mayerling:
http://www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/0910/table1.pdf

The UC system has a lot of information available online. If you do a quick search you'll be able to find some interesting facts.

Here's another page of interest:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compensation/comparisons.html

(edited for accuracy)

 

[mayerling]

This is 3rd hand info, but I heard 90k. This was in the business dept, and it was 2 yrs ago.

Don't we wish!

Looks like $53,200 at step 1 for an asst prof.

Here's a link to the UC current salary scale, mayerling:
http://www.ucop.edu/acadadv/acadpers/0910/table1.pdf

The UC system has a lot of information available online. If you do a quick search you'll be able to find some interesting facts.

Here's another page of interest:
http://www.universityofcalifornia.edu/news/compensation/comparisons.html

(edited for accuracy)

Thanks, Haven.

In the meantime we did manage to find the salary scales for the university we're interested in. I have another question you might be able to help me, though: the university we're interested quotes a salary for just 9 months of the year; what happens for the three summer months? No pay, the same pay as for the 9 months?

 

[Haven]

My guess is that you can choose to receive your pay over nine or 12 months of the year. The total income remains the same, of course, they just stretch it out over 12 months if you prefer.

In my area colleges pay a percentage of your salary for teaching summer school, and it's pretty significant. I would guess it is the same situation in California, and perhaps they have the "9 month salary" wording out there to indicate that you'd earn extra for teaching in the summer.

You're probably already familiar with The Chronicle, but just in case, it's a great resource for job hunters:
http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5

 

[Porridge]

Either my source was ridiculously qualified or was stretching the truth! Either is possible I know it was their first job after finishing their PhD.

I'll leave you in the far more capable and knowledgeable hands of Haven for this one.
Best of luck with the job hunt!

 

[mayerling]

My guess is that you can choose to receive your pay over nine or 12 months of the year. The total income remains the same, of course, they just stretch it out over 12 months if you prefer.

In my area colleges pay a percentage of your salary for teaching summer school, and it's pretty significant. I would guess it is the same situation in California, and perhaps they have the "9 month salary" wording out there to indicate that you'd earn extra for teaching in the summer.

You're probably already familiar with The Chronicle, but just in case, it's a great resource for job hunters:
http://chronicle.com/section/Home/5

Would this apply to more research-oriented institutions as well?

 

[Haven]

I have no idea. Perhaps Dreamer, Circe, or Kama will see this thread and chime in.

Good luck on your search, Mayerling! Are you hoping to find a position for Fall 2011?

Hi, Porridge! Your friend was probably telling the truth, the starting salary info is for the very first step at the asst. prof. rank. The scale goes up from there!

 

[Porridge]

Hi Haven! That's most likely it. Also they may have been including things like benefits etc.

 

[mayerling]

I have no idea. Perhaps Dreamer, Circe, or Kama will see this thread and chime in.

Good luck on your search, Mayerling! Are you hoping to find a position for Fall 2011?

Hi, Porridge! Your friend was probably telling the truth, the starting salary info is for the very first step at the asst. prof. rank. The scale goes up from there!

Right now, it's just FI who's looking. A job has come up but they don't specify a start date. I imagine it would be Fall 2011; I don't see it being any sooner. Besides, we get married in Fall 2011 so we can't really move before then

 

[violet3]

Salary is also heavily dependent on what dicipline you are teaching - what is your area? Pay would be higher for say a business professor than it would be for a social science professor. Pay scales do differ between teaching institutions and research institutions with the latter being better paid.

At least this is what i remember from when i was finishing my masters and planning on going for my doctorate in Communication. I decided at the last minute not to continue, so i don't have first hand experience with the pay, but i remember looking into it.

 

[violet3]

This is 3rd hand info, but I heard 90k. This was in the business dept, and it was 2 yrs ago.

FYI, it is possible that with a doctorate in business, the salary could be high (not sure about that high), considering the monetary pull in the "real world." Colleges have to be competitive with the outside pay to get professors in certain disciplines because of the amount they are able to make if they go elsewhere for a job.


EDIT: salaries for business doctorates article here -http://www.bestbizschools.com/downloads/The-Professor's-Paycheck-BizEd-Magazine.pdf

 

[Haven]

Violet--UC is a unionized faculty, so the salary scale is the same for all faculty members, regardless of discipline. (At least, that is what appears to be the truth based on those websites to which I linked earlier.)

ETA: I'm a professor in a community college and we are unionized, so all faculty are paid based on the same salary schedule.

 

[Haven]

I have no idea. Perhaps Dreamer, Circe, or Kama will see this thread and chime in.

Good luck on your search, Mayerling! Are you hoping to find a position for Fall 2011?

Hi, Porridge! Your friend was probably telling the truth, the starting salary info is for the very first step at the asst. prof. rank. The scale goes up from there!

Right now, it's just FI who's looking. A job has come up but they don't specify a start date. I imagine it would be Fall 2011; I don't see it being any sooner. Besides, we get married in Fall 2011 so we can't really move before then

Yes, I definitely didn't think anyone would be interviewing now for a position *earlier* than fall 2011, I thought you might be looking into coming to the US for the fall 2012 semester.

That's wonderful that there is a potential position available. I remember submitting all of my applications just over a year ago this time. Best of luck to your FI as he goes on his interviews!

 

[violet3]

Good to know - didn't know if porridge's friend was there, or another insitution. thanks for correcting me - the University i teach for is definitely NOT unionized. interesting info.

 

[Haven]

I neglected to recognize that you were posting in response to Porridge and not mayerling, violet. Sorry about that!

I've never worked in an institution where faculty weren't unionized--I'd love to hear your thoughts on that if you're interested in sharing. What's your field? It sounds like you switched from communications to something else, based on your earlier post. I'm just being nosey, so I'll understand if you don't want to share.

 

[violet3]

Oh no, you are right! i was posting to both the OP and porridge. glad for the correction!

I did study communication (mass comm in particular) - i just stopped after my bachelos and my masters, rather than going on for my PHD. I often wish i had done otherwise, but i go back and forth on that. I teach part time (adjunct) for a state university, which is partially funded by the state, but also privately chartered. When i was looking to go on after my masters, i picked a lot of professors' brains about the salaries, the research, teaching based institutions etc. I love the part time job - i am on what they call an S Contract - i am paid per credit, but there isn't room or need for me full time.

p.s. I also have a bachelor's in English (like you)! If i had done my master's in English, I could teach at our community college full time, and might actually be able to teach full time. I might be able to do so now, but haven't looked into it. But where i do teach, the English faculty are all PHDs (at least the full time faculty).

How's your experience been with your new job? i hope you love it!

 

[Haven]

I LOVE my new job, thank you for asking!

I worked as an adjunct at another CC for six years, and I loved that, too. Both CCs were unionized, though, and I imagine the environment is different in a CC than a research institution, as well. I really love teaching in a community college, I feel like I've found my perfect educational niche.

It's such a shame that colleges can't hire more FT faculty. Our adjuncts teach more than half of our English courses, and I wish we could hire so many of them FT.

Do you ever consider going back for your PhD in the future? I'm not interested at the moment, but I've had my eye on a couple linguistics programs for a while, now.

 

[mayerling]

I have no idea. Perhaps Dreamer, Circe, or Kama will see this thread and chime in.

Good luck on your search, Mayerling! Are you hoping to find a position for Fall 2011?

Hi, Porridge! Your friend was probably telling the truth, the starting salary info is for the very first step at the asst. prof. rank. The scale goes up from there!

Right now, it's just FI who's looking. A job has come up but they don't specify a start date. I imagine it would be Fall 2011; I don't see it being any sooner. Besides, we get married in Fall 2011 so we can't really move before then

Yes, I definitely didn't think anyone would be interviewing now for a position *earlier* than fall 2011, I thought you might be looking into coming to the US for the fall 2012 semester.

That's wonderful that there is a potential position available. I remember submitting all of my applications just over a year ago this time. Best of luck to your FI as he goes on his interviews!

I think the best fit for us would be something starting in January 2012 but we could wait for Fall 2012 if necessary as we would still have our jobs in the UK.

 

[Haven]

I have no idea. Perhaps Dreamer, Circe, or Kama will see this thread and chime in.

Good luck on your search, Mayerling! Are you hoping to find a position for Fall 2011?

Hi, Porridge! Your friend was probably telling the truth, the starting salary info is for the very first step at the asst. prof. rank. The scale goes up from there!

I meant to say "Kata" in this post, as in Katamari. Sorry, Kama!

 

[Dreamer_D]

Having a union does guarantee a scale but my no means suggests that all new hires are paid the same . There is a tremendous variation in starting salaries based on prior experience, discipline, competing offers etc. The variation for two peopel hired at the same year as Assistant profs can be as much as $30k - $40k. All the pay scale means is they cannot offer you LESS then the floor for your rank. Nothing more, really.

The floor pay scale is relatively meaningless for all disciplines other than the Humanities -- English, History etc -- at the universities I am familiar with. Social sciences seem to be near the middle, but even then if your dept. is strong salaries will be higher. Business is ridiculously high in salary, I could earn about 60% more if I went to the dark side

At the UC school I think $60 - $80k depending on your qualifications and the importance of your department is a good guess.

 

[Haven]

Yes, I definitely understand that new hires are placed at different locations on the scale based on experience and education. (Heck, I bet they *rarely* hire anyone at step 1, anyway.)

However, I didn't know that some schools pay people differently based on their area. My school's faculty contract has very strict placement procedures, and placement is the same for all disciplines. (SO: Two individuals with the same equivalent experience and education will be placed at the same level on the scale, regardless of their area of expertise. And experience in a professional area does not earn more "credit" toward schedule placement than experience in the humanities.)

Interesting stuff!

 

[mayerling]

Having a union does guarantee a scale but my no means suggests that all new hires are paid the same . There is a tremendous variation in starting salaries based on prior experience, discipline, competing offers etc. The variation for two peopel hired at the same year as Assistant profs can be as much as $30k - $40k. All the pay scale means is they cannot offer you LESS then the floor for your rank. Nothing more, really.

The floor pay scale is relatively meaningless for all disciplines other than the Humanities -- English, History etc -- at the universities I am familiar with. Social sciences seem to be near the middle, but even then if your dept. is strong salaries will be higher. Business is ridiculously high in salary, I could earn about 60% more if I went to the dark side

At the UC school I think $60 - $80k depending on your qualifications and the importance of your department is a good guess.

Thanks for the info Dreamer! This is quite encouraging.

 

[Clairitek]

This thread is really interesting to me. After finishing my PhD I opted out of staying in academia to go into industry (I'm in engineering). Mostly because I was tired of academia and didn't want to do a post doc as well (which is pretty much required in order to be a faculty in engineering from what I've experienced). I'm sort of curious what I missed out on (or gained) money-wise by going into industry and leaving academia behind. I would love to teach as an adjunct some day though! My friend whose career is similar to mine (though he is 5 years ahead of me) does that and he finds it really rewarding.

Best of luck to you mayerling. I hope your job search is fruitful!

 

[Dreamer_D]

Haven Are you at a large research institution? I cannot imagine a rule like you describe at my university or any other that is a research-based school. The hiring market for top job candidates is to fierce. Even though it is a very hard job market generally speaking, if you are a top candidate and thus good enough to get a job offer, most likely you have multiple offers and so it pushes salaries around. There is just no way, for example, my dept. could ever ever hire a good social psychologist if they only offered the same amount of money that the university offers to an Historian, the market simply would not bear it out as the social psychologist could just earn much more at another place assuming they were good enough to get multiple offers. It is also near impossible to figure out what constitues equal credentials accross fields, so some sort of rule of equal pay for equal credentials also would not work. I suppose if salary scales were equalized accross the board internationally it would work -- raise salaries in the lower paid disciplines. But we all know how that would go over at a beurocatic level -- like a lead balloon. I can see how it works better in a primarily teaching institution as the playing field is more even in terms of equating credentials accross disciplines and likely contests for instructors is not as fierce accross universities. But at our school and others that I know of (I have friends at about 8 different schools) each faculty and even department is sort of its own economic entity and is given a hiring budget to apportion, though there are rules of thumb in place accross disciplines. Getting good researchers means big bucks -- even in Canada where research grants are smaller, though more plentiful -- and the universities benefit with infrastructure, paid RAs and TAs etc etc. I think that fuels the fire for salaries compared to primarily teaching schools.


ClaritekAt most schools the salary for teaching just a class or two is a pittance in my opinion. Around $5000 to $8000 in Canada at least, which does not seem worth the work when I think about the fact that I teach 4 classes per annum and am paid a lot more than $32k But I suppose if it is just here or there and you find it fun, the money is nothing to sneeze at.

Now the business schools pay something like $25000 per class! There is the real money.

You certainly don`t go ito academia primarily for the pay, though I am very happy with my compensation to be honest. But the other perks are nice -- set your own hours to a large extent, no real `boss`, flexibility if you have childcare issues with ill kiddos etc. The sum gain is much more than the salary, it is the lifestyle, in my opinion. But even that varies tremendously by field and by institution and by person.

 

[Haven]

Dreamer--I completely believe you, AND I understand the motivation behind *not* using a rigid salary scale at a research institution. I wasn't trying to challenge the information you shared or anything. I just find it all very interesting. As I shared, I'm at a community college. I am a teacher, not a researcher, so my background is very different. I came from a public K-12 system, which, as you noted, adheres to strict salary schedules.

While I have no interest in ever leaving the CC system, as I believe it is the perfect job for me, I just find this all very interesting. It was my impression, based on UC's contract, that they followed a similar salary placement procedure as my own school. Of course, I am completely aware that my impression may be wrong. They seem to be undergoing an initiative to change their salary schedule and placement procedures, based on the information they've made public on their union website. I may have read it wrong, that's completely possible.

I was very involved in my high school's contract negotiations, and that experience has given me a strong interest in such things. I knew I could find the UC contract online if I looked hard enough, so when I found it I just spent some time going through it because it's always eye opening to see how other schools draw their contracts.

I've only been teaching for seven years, so I'm new-ish to the profession. I just like to learn about how different institutions do things, that's all. Many of my current colleagues came from research institutions, as well, so we have great discussions about the differences between the CC and the research institution.

I should probably have kept my nose out of Mayerling's thread once I linked to the UC salary schedule. I knew I could find the starting salary for an asst. prof., which is what she was looking for in her OP, which is why I posted.

Mayerling--I wish your FI much luck on his job search, and the two of you a wonderful wedding and marriage! I'm sorry for derailing the discussion.

ETA: Dreamer--I really liked reading the info you posted. I just wanted to make sure that I didn't sound as if I was challenging you in my earlier post. Thank you for taking the time to post all of that, I enjoyed reading it.

 

[Clairitek]

ClaritekAt most schools the salary for teaching just a class or two is a pittance in my opinion. Around $5000 to $8000 in Canada at least, which does not seem worth the work when I think about the fact that I teach 4 classes per annum and am paid a lot more than $32k But I suppose if it is just here or there and you find it fun, the money is nothing to sneeze at.

Now the business schools pay something like $25000 per class! There is the real money.

You certainly don`t go ito academia primarily for the pay, though I am very happy with my compensation to be honest. But the other perks are nice -- set your own hours to a large extent, no real `boss`, flexibility if you have childcare issues with ill kiddos etc. The sum gain is much more than the salary, it is the lifestyle, in my opinion. But even that varies tremendously by field and by institution and by person.

Thinking some more about this topic, I think when push comes to shove I didn't want to compete for a tenured spot. I've heard a small handful of horror stories about the stress of that sort of thing and I just didn't think I had it in me.

If I ever do the adjunct thing it would be mostly just for fun. I've never taught because I wasn't sure how comfortable I would be in that position but I think I could have fun teaching about my little boutiquey subject in engineering. Just before I applied for my current job a teaching position in a boat building school opened up in my hometown area. They were starting a new program thats in my area of expertise and I very nearly applied for the job. The school is a trade school and not really academia but I would have been developing and teaching several classes. I think it would have been a blast but not really what I had intended for my career. Maybe later in life when I want a change of pace and to be able to move back home.

I'm so glad to hear that being in academia has been so rewarding for you! I remember following your pregnancy and job search and being so happy to hear about your offer. I can certainly see the advantage of flexibility when it comes to child-bearing and I'm really not looking forward to juggling that part of my life while working a "regular" job and trying to have kids.

 

[Haven]

Clairi--I taught as an adjunct for six years while teaching high school FT and I LOVED adjuncting! If you're doing it on the side, it can be a lot of fun. (If you love teaching, of course.)

 

[Dreamer_D]

Haven Girl I was not trying to argue with you or anything! Sorry if the post looked like that. I was just really suprised at the difference at a CC (missed that's what you were talking about, we don't really have a similar system in Canada) compared to a research university and was just blabbling. No arguing intended! Sorry it seemed that way, I was just pontificating about the potential reasons for such different salary approaches at the different places.

 

[Haven]

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.