For the second consecutive year, salaries for tenured and tenure-eligible faculty in the humanities are getting significant additional funds. Also, three other Liberal Arts and Sciences departments are receiving new salary dollars in 2014.
The second round of the salary initiative will distribute about $600,000 in additional salary and benefits from allocations from President Steven Leath, Senior Vice President and Provost Jonathan Wickert, and LAS Dean Beate Schmittmann. Funds will go to six humanities departments: English, Greenlee School of Journalism and Communication, history, music and theatre, philosophy and religious studies, and world languages and cultures. The program was expanded this year to include mathematics and political science. The college also allocated some funds to geological and atmospheric sciences.
“Please join me in thanking President Leath and Provost Wickert for allocating $250,000 in new salary dollars to this initiative – for the second year in a row,” Schmittmann said. “Their support helps us offer competitive salaries to our most productive and engaged faculty.”
The allocations, which are permanent, are intended to bring the average salaries of the faculty in line with salaries of their peers at other institutions, Schmittmann said. “This is another opportunity to show our appreciation to our most prolific researchers and scholars and our premier teachers.”
Last year, nearly $500,000 was allocated to the humanities departments.
“Our faculty are gratified with the humanities salary bumps that the university and LAS has provided the past two years,” Michael Golemo, professor and chair of music and theatre, said. “Our faculty are keenly aware that their salaries were lagging behind our peer institutions, and these increases do much for our faculty retention and morale. We’re thrilled with the support from the university and LAS.”