In this article, UNC officials are making their annual complaint about money woes to the legislature. In truth, their proposal that lawmakers “change state purchasing rules to allow schools to choose vendors who offer better services and products or sell them for less money” sounds intriguing and responsible.
Two things I’m curious about, however. NC State Chancellor Marye Anne Fox said this in arguing for more flexibility in salaries: “A third-rate researcher is cheap, but does it get you where you need to be?” Just how many third-rate researchers are there at your institution, and have you told them that? Also, if they were recruited away, would you miss them and say they left because of their salaries?
The second is, UNC-Chapel Hill officials told the reporter that the average salary of UNC-CH professors is $85,000 a year. This is either flat wrong or grossly misreported. The average salary of UNC-CH full professors (which the term “professors” usually implies) was $105,200 last year, according to the American Association of University Professors’ annual survey. UNC-CH associate professors earned on average $73,400, and assistant professors averaged $61,300.
Perhaps that $85,000 average includes associate and assistant professors’ salaries, but if UNC-CH is putting out this figure as an average and hoping legislators will compare with average (full) professors salaries elsewhere, then this is highly misleading.
