Knox Faculty Salaries 2004-2005

Below are some observations on faculty salaries at Knox for the academic year 2004-2005. I've made these based on the publicly available data found in Academe or other AAUP publications (e.g., here), The Chronicle of Higher Education or the chronicle.com website (e.g., here), and IRS form 990's (e.g., here). The faculty salary study for 2003-2004 may be found here.

Comparison with ACM and AAUP Averages

As a first step in getting a handle on the status of faculty salaries at Knox, I made some comparisons of faculty salary averages at Knox with other well-known averages. The AAUP publishes multiple statistics on faculty salaries annually. Among these, the most relevant seem to be the AAUP salary averages for general IIB institutions (i.e., both public and private baccalaureate institutions combined) and the AAUP averages for private independent IIB institutions. In addition, I also looked at specific data for the 13 schools in the ACM (excluding the University of Chicago) and computed the average and median for these schools as well. The results are given below.

Full Professors:
Knox Average: $63,600
AAUP IIB Average: $71,820 ( Knox: -11.5%)
AAUP private independent IIB Average: $82,340 (Knox: -22.8%)
ACM Average: $75,380 (Knox: -15.6%)
ACM Median: $72,100 (Knox: -11.8%)

Associate Professors:
Knox Average: $46,900
AAUP IIB Average: $55,430 (Knox: -15.4%)
AAUP private independent IIB Average: $60,200 (Knox: -22.1%)
ACM Average: $57,430 (Knox: -18.3%)
ACM Median: $57,900 (Knox: -19%)

Assistant Professors:
Knox Average: $40,800
AAUP IIB Average: $46,090 (Knox: -11.5%)
AAUP private independent IIB Average: $49,430 (Knox: -17.5%)
ACM Average: $46,880 (Knox: -12.9%)
ACM Median: $45,000 (Knox: -9.3%)

The percentage by which Knox falls short is given in parentheses. For a table of faculty salary averages at the ACM schools click here. While it's fruitful to compare the salary at a Knox rank with the salary at a corresponding rank at other institutions, it's also useful to make comparisons across ranks. Note, for instance, that associate professors at Knox were paid the same as the average for assistant professors at ACM schools overall. Indeed, six of the schools in the ACM actually paid their assistant professors more on average than Knox pays its associate professors, and the faculty salary averages for assistant professors at Carleton, Grinnell, and Macalester are almost as close to the full professor average at Knox as they are to the associate professor average at Knox. In a similar vein, the associate professor salary average at Knox was below the AAUP average for private independent IIB schools, and was within $900 of the general average for assistant professors at IIB institutions overall.

Comparison with Averages at Private Colleges and Universities in the Midwest

Last spring I made a comparison of Knox salaries for 2002-2003 with a wider peer group consisting of private colleges and universities in Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Michigan. Here are the corresponding results for 2003-2004, using faculty salary and tuition data from the Chronicle.

Knox Tuition: 13/114 (last year: 8/112)
Knox Full Professor Salary Average: 55/114 (last year: 47/112)
Knox Associate Professor Salary Average: 90/114 (last year: 71/112)
Knox Assistant Professor Salary Average: 90/114 (last year: 81/112)

Results from 2002-2003 are in parentheses. Full results of the survey are available here, where the correlations between tuition and salary are given at the bottom of each salary column.

Comparison with High Tuition IIB Institutions

The comparison with private colleges and universities throughout the midwest is useful in that it is more specific than the nationwide AAUP survey, but more general than the ACM survey. However, in order to make a more manageable peer group, I restricted the survey to those in Carnegie category IIB with published tuition of $20,000 or more. There were 27 schools in the resulting peer group. Some summary statistics:

Full Professors:
Knox rank: 24/27
Knox Average: $63,600
Overall Average: $74,050 (Knox: -14.1%)
Overall Median: $71,900 (Knox: -11.5%)

Associate Professors:
Knox rank: 27/27
Knox Average: $46,900
Overall Average: $57,980 (Knox: -19.1%)
Overall Median: $56,000 (Knox: -16.3%)

Assistant Professors:
Knox rank: 27/27
Knox Average: $40,800
Overall Average: $48,460 (Knox: -15.8%)
Overall Median: $46,600 (Knox: -12.5%)

For more detailed information on the schools in this survey click here. Again, these rankings don't tell the whole story. Note, for instance, that at the associate and assistant professor level, not only is Knox ranked last in average salary, but the next highest salary in each rank is more than 6% higher. Also, at the full professor level, while Knox is 24th out of 27, the difference between Knox and the three schools below it is relatively small:

Knox full professor salary average: $63,600
Cornell College full professor salary average: $63,200
Coe College full professor salary average: $63,100
Minneapolis College of Art and Design full professor salary average: $62,600

Since the internal salary equity plan adopted this year seemed to impact the full professors disproportionately hard, it will be interesting to see how these rankings change in 2004-2005, especially since the effect of retirements and promotions is usually to drag the average down.

Historical Trends in Knox Faculty Salaries

As I've talked to faculty members about salary issues one belief I've come across is that faculty salaries at Knox have always been low. To study this claim, I looked at back issues of Academe over the past 25 years. For each year, I compared faculty salary averages at Knox with the AAUP IIB averages and the AAUP private independent IIB averages for that year. The results for each rank are given below, with Knox averages given as blue squares, AAUP IIB averages as red diamonds, and AAUP private independent IIB averages as yellow triangles