For nearly two years, faculty and administrators wrangled, quarreled and debated over the divisive issue of merit pay. Now, all that debate seems to be for nothing.
Merit pay, scheduled to be implemented this year with or without full faculty participation, was delayed by administrators due to budget shortfalls that also resulted in the disbandment of the football and hockey teams.
Earlier in the year, faculty members were asked to prepare a self-evaluation by mid-February detailing their academic activities in order to be considered for a merit raise. Under the previous system of faculty compensation, a group of faculty members called the Faculty Salary Committee would negotiate a uniform pay increase with members of the administration which kept Fairfield’s faculty compensation in the 95th percentile of comparable schools.
Under the new merit system, faculty would be given different amounts of raises based on activities such as having articles published in academic journals and presenting at academic conferences.
Due to the budget crunch, however, merit pay has been delayed for implementation this year, and according to faculty members, university employees will only receive an across-the-board $500 pay increase.
Faculty members reacted to this news with anger.
“What are these people thinking?” said Dr. Donald Greenberg, a politics professor and chair of the Faculty Salary Committee. “They should’ve known these budget considerations were coming along.
As a result, these evaluations seem to be for naught.”
Greenberg also said that the merit pay affair has “raised questions over whether the administration is competent. Why were they pushing so hard when it wasn’t going to happen?”
Dr. Mark LeClair, an economics professor, was more optimistic. “I genuinely believe that Fairfield is experiencing some of the same pressures other academic institutions are experiencing. You would have little trouble finding other institutions with hiring or wage freezes in place. One of the more serious problems this year was dramatically rising healthcare costs, and that is a problem everywhere.”
Academic Vice President Dr. Orin Grossman concurred. “Other schools are facing the same problems. Notre Dame announced a freeze and even five to seven percent cutbacks for next year. Boston University and Stanford have also announced freezes.”
Grossman also said that some cutbacks were due to rising healthcare costs. “There will be a significant increase in medical premiums-nearly 20 percent,” he said.
“Obviously, I would have wished there to be enough money to accomplish substantial merit evaluations. That will not be possible this year. We do now have a merit structure in place, and we will activate it as soon as there are sufficient funds.”
“We’re not in great shape, but we’re in good shape,” Grossman added. “We’re not cutting back on people or more programs … A number of the faculty is against merit pay, now they’re probably saying that after all that, it can’t be funded. I think all faculty, though, understands that these are tough times.”
“No one is happy with so small an increase,” LeClair added. “Since inflation went up about two percent last year, what is technically happening is the faculty and administrators are taking a cut in their standard of living.”
Faculty were also critical of the budget decision-making process in place at the university. A joint faculty-administration budget committee makes recommendations on the budget that are endorsed by the Board of Trustees.
Some faculty expressed concern that the university does not disclose enough information to faculty members with respect to the budget.
“We’ve never seen the budget numbers,” Greenberg said. “We have to take [the administration’s] word for it … The cancellation of the hockey and football programs and the handling of salaries indicates that there should be a lot more openness about the budget problem because something seems to be wrong.”
Dr. Ed Dew, a politics professor, agreed. “Everything is clearly up in the air,” he said. “We’ve always been kept in the dark about things like this. Maybe it’s just standard procedure, but the faculty never really knows where the university’s priorities lie in terms of the budget.”
“Academics have always been left on the short end of the stick,” Dew added. “The faculty understands that Father Kelley and others are attempting to build up the university and academics may have to wait.”
LeClair, a faculty member of the university’s budget committee, said, “The faculty has three representatives on the budget committee-it is our job to express the faculty’s concerns and to convey information back to the faculty.”
“Unfortunately,” LeClair added, “when it comes down to actually grinding out the numbers, it occurs over a very brief period of time. Our ability to let colleagues know what is going on is made more difficult by that short time period.”
William Lucas, Vice President of Finance for the university, defended the budget process. “The faculty members on the board receive a detailed evaluation as much as we can break it down,” he said. “It’s never been our goal to publicize that information because of salaries and personal information that may be in there. The faculty receive all the data they need to make the recommendation … We make the information available to the extent that they need to know. I don’t know what else would be appropriate.”
“We’re not trying to hide anything,” Lucas added. “It’s just a level of detail that doesn’t need to be known.”
“Should there be more openness?” LeClair asked. “I can easily think of some great and not so great things that would come from releasing specific information to the university community during the length of the budget process.”
Commenting on the cuts of the football and hockey programs and the wage freeze, LeClair said that “All the parties at the table during the budget committee meetings presented their views on where the resources of the university should be allocated-views that reflected their interests. The view of the three faculty members did not always prevail.”
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