Analysis of 2004-2005 Salary Offer Survey Results

Sent to IS World March 10, 2005

 

AIS, ISWORLD NET, the University of Pittsburgh, and Temple University announce the results of last year's MIS Faculty Salary Offer Survey.  This note is much later than usual; my apologies. Please continue to provide your 2005-2006 salary offer information at http://www.pitt.edu/~galletta/salsurv.html. 

 

Please accept this apology for the long delay in getting this out to you.  Usually I try for October, but the months have gotten away from me.  Also note that the current survey is in progress at http://www.pitt.edu/~galletta/salsurv.html.  I receive from time to time a blank survey, which makes me wonder about the cgiemail program in use at Pitt.  Please let me know if any of your submissions were not recorded within 2-3 days of sending them.  If I had more time, I would move this to my server at Temple using different technology.

 

What's New: I have taken some time to recast this so that it is easier to update each year and is in a more sensible format. I have also recast several categories so that only US and PhD/DBA holders are represented. See the note about this decision below. Those who wish to analyze other categories should note that the numbers are extremely small and few countries are represented.

 

We have again experienced a declining numbers of entries, and the results might not represent all offers in general. Of course, there is a decline in the number of positions, so this does seem consistent with the state of the job market.

 

Please submit your offers, especially if you are a brand new assistant professor.  If you have submitted your offer information and did not see it posted, please let me know.  From time to time I receive a blank survey and wonder if the Unix software malfunctioned.

Bottom line per year (US, PhD-only assistant professor candidates, the largest subgroup):

 

2005-2006 (so far): 100,200 in research schools (n=5); 95,500 in teaching schools (n=3)

 

2004-2005: $98,286 in research schools (n=6); $79,316 in teaching schools (n=19)

2003-2004: $100,448 in research schools (n=29); $86,769 in teaching schools (n=13)

2002-2003: $100,502 in research schools (n=30); $85,500 in teaching schools (n=5)

2001-2002: $ 94,462 in research schools (n=52); $76,882 in teaching schools (n=10)

2000-2001: $ 87,192 in research schools (n=59); $73,647 in teaching schools (n=34)

 

The main focus is on U.S. Assistant Professors, given the numbers, the currency complications, and the situation with many schools outside the U.S. where many professors must supplement their earnings with consulting.  For reporting averages, it makes sense to minimize variance.  If there were enough data points from outside the U.S., I would report many more averages.

 

Although preliminary figures for this year (2005-2006) show nearly a full rebound in salaries, for 2004-2005, offers in the U.S. for freshly-minted PhDs declined for the second year: the decrease was $2,163 for research schools and $7,453 for teaching schools (above 12 semester credits per year).  There was once again a sharp decrease in the ratio of research positions (7) to total positions (26). The sample size is small, so this number can be expected to be volatile from year to year.

The final spreadsheet, in Excel Pivot Table form, is available by going to http://www.milletsoftware.com/Download/SalaryOffers.xls. Thanks to Ido Millet of Penn State Erie for again graciously providing this tool.

2004-2005 RESULTS:

 

We only have records covering 57 offers this year (down from 77 offers recorded last year and 90 the year before). I have not investigated whether this decrease was due to the availability of fewer jobs, fewer offers, or some technical problem.  It is possible that more intrusive data might have continued to play a role too.  The most important statistic in my informal analysis is that US PhD-only hires in research institutions still seems to be holding relatively steady at $98,286, down about 2 percent from last year's $100,448. In teaching institutions, offers declined 8.6%, moving the average to $79,316 from last year's $86,769. 

 

The correlation between salaries and teaching load has strengthened, as salaries in teaching institutions have declined moderately, at -.4182.  The correlation between summer support and teaching load remains very strong, at -.6243. Teaching loads appear to have moved sharply upwards in both types of institutions, although 2005-2006 preliminary figures are extremely encouraging with a similar rebound to earlier times.

 

Results US only PhD/DBA only Assistant Professor:

 

Year

Overall

Research Only

change

Teaching Only

% change

2004-2005

84,423 (N=26)

98,286 (n=6)

- 2,163 (-2.2%)

79,316 (n=19)

- 7,453 (-8.6%)

2003-2004

96,214 (N=34)

100,448 (n=29)

-      53 (.05%)

86,769 (n=13)

+ 1,269 (1.5%)

2002-2003

98,359 (N=35)

100,502 (n=30)

+ 5,341 (5.6%)

85,500 (n=5)

+ 6,450 (8.2%)

2001-2002

92,562 (N=62)

95,161 (n=52)

+ 7,962 (9.1%)

79,050 (n=10)

+ 5,403 (7.3%)

2000-2001

82,244 (N=93)

87,198 (n=59)

 

73,647 (n=34)

 

 

Results for Assistants who Switched Schools (recast this year to USA only, PhD only):

 

Year

Overall

Research Only

Change

Teaching Only

change

2004-2005

100,500 (N=7)

108,500 (n=4)

+22,871 (26.4%)

89,833 (n=3)

+4,875 (5.7%)

2003-2004

85,188 (N=16)

85,875 (n=4)

-14,696 (-14.6%)

84,958 (n=12)

+3,244 (4.0%)

2002-2003

94,286 (N=21)

100,571 (n=14)

+ 1,935 ( 2.0%)

81,714 (n=7)

+ 2,481 (3.1%)

2001-2002

90,770 (N=37)

98,636 (n=22)

+ 8,958 (10.0%)

79,233 (n=15)

+ 1,419 (1.8%)

2000-2001

83,966 (N=27)

89,679 (n=14)

 

77,814 (n=13)

 

 

Results for Associates (recast this year to USA only, PhD only):

 

Year

Overall

Research Only

change

Teaching Only

% change

2004-2005

121,000 (N=7)

125,333 (n=6)

 

95,000 (n=1)

- 23,333 (-19.7%)

2003-2004

118,333 (N=3)

none (n=0)

 

118,333 (n=3)

+38,133 (47.6%)

2002-2003

89,045 (N=11)

 96,417 (n=6)

-10,271 (-9.6%)

80,200 (n=5)

- 4,467 (-5.2%)

2001-2002

100,682 (N=22)

106,688 (n=16)

+ 2,688 (2.6%)

84,667 (n=6)

+ 3,416 (4.2%)

2000-2001

91,001 (N=14)

104,000 (n=6)

 

81,251 (n=8)

 

 

Results for Summer Support (all)

Year

Overall

Research Only

Proportion

Teaching Only

Proportion

2004-2005

11,172

15,676

12 of 24 (50%)

7,015

13 of 33 (39%)

2003-2004

15,075

17,929

35 of 44 (80%)

9,525

18 of 33 (55%)

2002-2003

16,246

18,414

53 of 62 (85%)

9,062

16 of 28 (57%)

2001-2002

17,666

19,443

93 of 103 (90%)

11,056

25 of 42 (60%)

2000-2001

13,785

17,365

83 of 93 (89%)

7,182

45 of 66 (68%)

 

Results for Teaching Load, in number of courses (see below) (recast as U.S. only, PhD only)

Year

Overall

Research Only

Teaching Only

2004-2005

5.4

3.8

6.5

2003-2004

4.7

3.7

6.0

2002-2003

4.1

3.6

5.7

2001-2002

4.2

3.7

5.7

2000-2001

4.6

3.6

6.0

 

-.4182 Correlation between teaching load and salary

-.6243 Correlation between teaching load and summer support

 

 

A “course” is considered to be in 3-credit equivalents, which counts for 45 nominal class hours (including breaks) times 4=180, or 37.5 teaching hours times 4=150. As before, a maximum teaching load of 4 courses per year defined "research institutions," and those schools above 4 courses per year were labeled "teaching institutions." Even though schools with higher teaching loads often value and even require research productivity, it seems logical to categorize the schools based on this single, explicit, and quantifiable indicator of a school’s support (not just desire) for research. Although it is an imperfect measure, it does capture much of the decision process of candidates, who consider 180 nominal class hours (including breaks) or 150 teaching hours to be the limit for what they consider a research orientation.

This Year’s Survey

This year, we are continuing to allow candidates to choose either an anonymous or non-anonymous (only to Dennis) entry.

Anonymous submissions are certainly appreciated, but in the past some deans stated that they did not wish to pay attention to anonymous data. It seems that we need a substantial body of verified/verifiable data for extending the impact of the survey. A non-anonymous entry will simply have a "yes" in the "identity revealed?" column as before.

We hope you find the results from last year interesting and useful, and that we receive a larger number of submissions this year, especially with identities revealed!

Dennis Galletta
Page Editor: Salary Survey