The university has developed a plan to increase the competitiveness of professor salaries, according to Jerry Gilbert, provost and executive vice president of Mississippi State University.
Gilbert said earlier this year, MSU President Mark Keenum formed a small task force of faculty members to investigate professor salaries at MSU as compared to peer averages.
Gilbert said the university must hire assistant professors at competitive rates, while professors who have spent many years at MSU have not experienced consistent raises.
“This is called the compression process,” he said. “It compresses the gap between full professors’ salaries and assistant professors’ salaries.”
Meghan Millea, professor of finance and economics, said it is not uncommon for a newly hired assistant professor to have a higher salary than a tenured professor with many years at the university.
“This happens everywhere, not just at here, due to market forces,” she said.
Gilbert said the task force compared MSU professors’ salaries to those of professors at similar land-grant institutions in the Southern University Group.
According to data compiled by the task force, the current average salary of a full professor at MSU is 83 percent of the average of that for peer land-grant universities in SUG.
Millea said the task force developed a plan to adjust the salaries of full professors.
Millea, who analyzed much of the data necessary to develop the plan, said the SUG average is discipline-based.
“The SUG average for an engineering professor’s salary is different from that of an economics professor because the market is different for each,” Millea said.
Millea said the plan will utilize a total of about $1 million over the next two years to adjust salaries of professors.
“Over the next two years, we will be shrinking the gap between actual salaries and SUG averages for their discipline,” she said. “Everyone’s gap will shrink by the same percentage.”
Millea said there will be additional adjustments based on the number of years in the rank of full professor.
“The SUG average will be increased by 1 percent for each year of full professorship,” she said.
With the current plan, first salary adjustments will be made on Jan. 1, 2013.
Gilbert said the funds were generated primarily through cost savings programs such as energy savings and vehicle fleet maintenance.
“In 2009, the university began preparing for the impact of the 2008 financial crisis,” he said. “We were expecting big budget cuts.”
Gilbert said the budget cuts were smaller than expected, leaving the university with a surplus.
“The cuts were not quite as bad as we expected,” he said. “We had money left over, and we turned it around and used it on things like salaries.”
Gilbert said adjusting professors’ salaries is a benefit to both faculty and students.
“We know the quality of education is largely dependent on the quality of instructors. By having competitive salaries, we can attract, hire and retain the best faculty, and our students are getting the best-quality education,” he said.
Gilbert added competitive professor salaries are a significant part of the economic health of the state.
“It gives the state well-educated graduates and also attracts research, which is very important,” he said.