This month’s IR in the Know provides an overview of data sources for salary and compensation for faculty and staff. These data can be used to help postsecondary education administrators evaluate personnel costs and benefits and determine market competitiveness.

AAUP Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession
Each year the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) collects salary and benefit data for full-time instructional faculty from colleges and universities through the AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey. The Annual Report on the Economic Status of the Profession presents the survey results in the March/April issue of Academe. National and regional data are provided on the number of faculty and average salary and compensation by rank (professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor), by institution category (doctoral, master’s, baccalaureate, associate’s), and affiliation (public, private, church related). Institutional data include average salaries by rank and by gender, average compensation by rank, the percentage salary increase from the prior year for continuing faculty, benefits as a percent of average salary, and percent of faculty with tenure. The annual report also highlights trends over the past year which impact compensation at colleges and universities. AAUP provides information in e-AIR to keep readers informed of the status of its annual survey.

CUPA-HR (College and University Personnel Association for Human Resources)
CUPA-HR conducts several salary surveys on higher education positions each year. Information on each survey listed below is available on the CUPA-HR web site under the survey tab. CUPA also offers DataOnDemand, a hands-on application which provides institutions aggregate information for peer comparison groups they create.

• The National Faculty Salary Survey for Four-Year Institutions (NFSS) provides average salary data for full-time faculty by rank (professor, associate professor, assistant professor, instructor, new assistant professors) and discipline, based on the four-digit Classification of Instructional Programs (CIP) developed by the National Center for Education Statistics. Data are reported for all institutions and for public and private institutions separately. The following information is also provided for each faculty rank within a discipline: unweighted average salary and median salary, highest and lowest full-time salary, and number of faculty and institutions included in the category. The report also includes information on pay practices at colleges and universities. The 2009-10 report was released in March. More information about the 2009-10 survey results can be found in the March issue of e-AIR.
  
  
• The Two-Year College Faculty Salary Survey provides average salaries for full-time faculty by discipline at two-year institutions. Since two-year colleges have a diverse pay structure, the survey provides four options for reporting salaries: by level of education/degree, academic rank, discipline with faculty unranked, and discipline with faculty ranked. For each option, the number of faculty, average salary, and highest and lowest salary are included. The report also includes information on pay practices for full-time and part-time/adjunct teaching faculty. The 2009-10 report was released in March and includes salary data from 255 institutions and 30,425 faculty.
  
  
• The Administrative Compensation Survey (AdComp) collects salary and demographic data for selected administrative positions in colleges and universities. In general, positions at or above the director level are reported in this survey. Positions in this survey are grouped into 11 categories: senior executive officers, chief financial officers, academic deans, academic associate/assistant deans, academic affairs, business and administrative affairs, human resources, information technology, athletics, student affairs, and external affairs. The report provides a summary of median salaries by position for all institutions. The data are grouped by affiliation (public, private, independent, religious), budget size, enrollment quartile, and Carnegie classification (doctoral granting, master’s, baccalaureate, associate). The report also includes salary comparisons by gender, minority status, hiring source (internal or external hire), and median years of service. The 2009-10 survey was released in February. In that survey, 1,281 institutions provided data for 77,186 staff in 280 senior-level positions. More information about the 2009-10 survey results is available in the February issue of e-AIR.
  
  
• The Mid-Level Administrative and Professional Salary Survey collects salary and demographic data for selected mid-level positions in higher education. In general, positions below the director level are reported in this survey. Staff positions are organized into eight categories: academic affairs, business and administrative affairs, human resources, information technology, athletics, student affairs, external affairs, and engineering/research and agricultural. Similar to the Administrative Compensation Survey, salary data are shown for all institutions and for groupings based on affiliation, budget size, enrollment, and Carnegie classification. In addition, average salary rates and rate structure data are reported by FSLA (Fair Standards Labor Act) status, budget quartile, enrollment quartile, and geographic region. For the 2009-10 survey, (released in March), 1,115 colleges and universities reported data for 188,221 staff members in 204 mid-level administrative positions. More information about the 2009-10 survey results can be found in the March issue of e-AIR.

Oklahoma State University Faculty Salary Survey by Discipline
Since 1972, Oklahoma State University’s Office of Institutional Research and Management has been publishing faculty salary data from doctoral-degree granting institutions which annually award doctorates in a minimum of five disciplines. Data are provided by the six-digit CIP codes and include average salaries for all institutions, research universities with very high research activity, research universities with high research activity, and doctoral/research universities. Summary data is also provided at the two- and four-digit CIP level. The 2009-10 report includes data from 115 institutions.