Tuesday, December 1, 1998
UCs fight to stay competitive
CAMPUS: Keeping salaries competitive with peers helps attract
top-quality faculty to California schools
By Lawrence Ferchaw
Daily Bruin Staff
While peer pressure can force college students to drink or
smoke, it can also encourage universities to give raises to
administrators and faculty.
UCLA and the other UC schools use a list of eight peer
universities – four public and four private – to compare faculty
and administrators’ salaries, as well as other aspects of the
university.
"It’s been sort of a traditional list that’s been around for
some time," said Chancellor Albert Carnesale. "(The list includes)
four first-rate publics and four first-rate privates, because we
understand it can’t just be publics."
The list includes Harvard University, Yale University, the
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford University, the
University of Michigan, the State University of New York at
Buffalo, the University of Illinois and the University of
Virginia.
Carnesale said the list helps to answer the question, "Where are
we in comparison to institutions that look sort of like us?"
The list is for all UC schools, so UCLA does not compare itself
to UC San Diego or UC Berkeley, according to Carnesale.
"It’s used all the time in presentations to the regents, when
presenting them with data. The first thing they want to know is
‘How do we compare to other places?’" Carnesale said.
The list was most recently used in a study of the compensation
for chancellors and vice chancellors in the UC system compared with
the eight peer universities.
The study found that UC chancellors on average earned about
$70,000 less per year than their peers.
The UC Board of Regents has since voted pay increases for all
the chancellors and a number of other officials. The raise,
effective Oct. 1, brought Carnesale’s annual salary to $271,400 –
up from $230,000. By comparison, Harvard’s president is paid
$270,057, and the University of Michigan’s president is paid
$287,375. Stanford’s president earns $357,735.
Despite the increase, UC chancellors still lag behind their
peers at the eight institutions by 17 percent.
"There is a very limited pool of qualified senior managers in
American higher education, and the growing compensation gap has
made it more difficult for UC to remain competitive in recruiting
new leadership," said Judith W. Boyette, UC associate vice
president for human resources and benefits.
The study, conducted by an independent consulting firm, also
looked at vice chancellor salaries and found that executive vice
chancellors lagged 31 percent behind their counterparts at the
eight peer universities.
Rory Hume, UCLA’s executive vice chancellor, is paid $204,000.
The average base salary for a chief academic officer in the UC
system before the increase was a little more than $164,000, while
the average for the same position in the eight peer universities is
about $216,000.
The lag for other vice chancellors ranged from 5 percent to 32
percent.
"The idea is not that we should pay more than any of these
comparison schools," Carnesale said. "It’s, ‘Are we in the
ballpark?’"
The comparisons are also used for faculty salaries, since UCLA
competes with many of the schools in the peer group for faculty
members.
"Would we like our faculty to be more qualified, less qualified
or comparable to the faculty at Harvard?" Carnesale said.
Despite the fact that UCLA is not often equated with Harvard and
Yale, it does compete with the universities for staff and faculty.
The same is true for another of UCLA’s peers, the University of
Michigan.
"The top publics compare to the top privates because we compete
with them all the time," said Paul Courant, associate provost and a
professor of economics at the University of Michigan.
Courant said UCLA is often on the list of universities it
considers its peers, as well as Harvard, Yale, UC Berkeley and
Stanford.
The comparison process for Michigan is on a case-by-case basis
rather than the more strict list that UCLA has, according to
Courant.
UCLA’s other peers report a similar practice of maintaining less
formal lists.
"We don’t have a fixed list," said Gila Reinstein, a
spokesperson for Yale University. "We consider all the premiere
institutions in the U.S. and the world to be our peer
institutions."
Reinstein said UCLA is sometimes on the list of Yale’s peer
institutions, depending on the area of comparison.
Harvard’s group of peers includes many of the Ivy League
schools, as well as a number of other private schools, but schools
like UCLA and Berkeley can sometimes be included.
"I wouldn’t be surprised if UCLA was on some of the lists for
faculty," said Merry Touborg, director of communications for the
office of human resources at Harvard.
The list of peer institutions, while primarily used for
comparing salaries, is also used for non-monetary comparisons.
"People tend to use the list for other purposes, but I don’t
think it’s used officially for other purposes," Carnesale said.
Other purposes may include a comparison of the quality of
facilities, the amount of space available per person, or the
quality of academic programs.
"These comparisons are relevant," Courant said. "(But)
comparisons when you get to the labor market are more directly
relevant than comparisons of square feet per student."
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