Memorandum

TO: All Faculty
FROM: Dr. Robert Holub, Provost
SUBJECT: Formation of Faculty Compensation Task Force
DATE: November 8, 2006

In the comparative data I have seen, the compensation for faculty on the Knoxville campus of the University of Tennessee is significantly lower than the universities which we want to emulate. It is certainly lower than the peer group of universities used by THEC, and lower than the regional universities with which we compete.

To address the situation of faculty compensation I have decided to form a Faculty Compensation Task Force. This task force will have two goals: to assess dispassionately the current state of faculty compensation and, where appropriate, to recommend remedies. Members of this task force include Denise Barlow, Donald Cunningham, Stanton Garner, Susan Martin, Daniel Murphy, Marva Rudolph, and Neal Schrick.

I want the task force to look only at faculty compensation, and only at compensation for ladder faculty. I recognize that faculty in other groups may be similarly underpaid. And I also recognize that staff across the campus and graduate teaching assistants face similar situations with regard to their compensation. But faculty seem to me to be in a separate category because (1) they are almost always subject to a national market and its forces, and (2) the quality of a university is more directly tied to the quality of its faculty than to any other factor.

In assessing the current situation I would like the task force to take into account all relevant salary survey data, and to solicit any information that will help it to determine how we shape up with our chief competitors.

Remedies will necessarily be limited by resources, and the task force can do very little to secure additional resources to address any problems it may uncover. However, in dealing with possible remedies, the task force should consider strategies that will contribute to the larger goal of recruiting and retaining the best faculty possible. The task force might also consider non-conventional methods of salary augmentation: payment from grants, funding through privately raised endowments, one-time bonuses based on incentives, etc.

I am confident that by studying this issue and by developing strategies to deal with it, we can arrive at solutions that will improve the compensation of deserving faculty members and thereby help us to enhance the stature of our campus.