Several chancellors in the UNC System are getting pay bumps from the UNC Board of Governors.
The increases go beyond the 1.5 percent raise given to all state employees as part of the North Carolina budget passed by the General Assembly.
The adjustments include a 3.14 percent jump for UNC – Chapel Hill Chancellor Carol Folt, above the 1.5 percent state-mandated increase. That brings Folt’s annual salary to $596,448. North Carolina State Chancellor Randy Woodson received an identical 3.14 bump over the 1.5 percent from the state to bring his salary to $617,376.
Chancellors at Appalachian State University, Elizabeth City State University, North Carolina Central University, UNC – Charlotte and Western Carolina also received bumps ranging from .81 percent to 14.63 percent for Charlotte Chancellor Philip Dubois. System President Margaret Spellings said his increase was due to “a pay equity issue that arose from the hiring of the new Chancellor at ECU.”
Spellings said these increases were an attempt to bring all of the chancellors across the system into the market range for their positions.
“This board has, for a couple of years now, been working to get competitive market salary ranges for each of the chancellors,” Spellings said after the meeting. “And this was the next step in that journey. And we are nearly there.”
The raises came after the Board of Governors approved pay raises for chancellors in November 2015 – a move that was criticized because of the secrecy that surrounded the increases.
Board chair Lou Bissette said the board “learned a lot of lessons last year.”
“We’ve determined that we didn’t do it correctly last year, but we think we did this year.”
Bissette added the board is moving toward more transparency in general, pointing to the public comment sessions now being held and that the board meetings are now streamed online.
Bissette said the board thought there were benefits from splitting the pay increases up, rather than just allocating the full increases last November.
“Nobody felt like that was a good thing to do in one bite,” Bissette said. “And so we made those increases. And then this pretty much completes that process that was begun two years ago when we had a market survey.”
Even with the increases, the two highest-paid chancellors – Woodson and Folt – are still below the market rate for their positions, according to the system’s figures, but every other chancellor is at least at the floor of the salary range.
“Here forward, we’re going to be looking at performance-oriented increases,” Bissette said. “But we needed to get everybody at least to the bottom part of their ranges.”
Woodson does have an incentive package that allows him to reach the market salary range for his position, but Folt does not. Spellings said the possibility exists that could change.
“There are, obviously, discussions at the [UNC – Chapel Hill] Board of Trustees about vehicles for Chancellor Folt that might be akin to Chancellor Woodson’s.”
As far as the performance metrics that will be used to decide future increases, those are still to be determined. Bissette said it is hard to find one umbrella that will cover all of the system’s institutions.
“The uniqueness of our system and the different campuses, that’s what makes this system great to me,” Bissette said. “But they are all different and unique, and there are not many times you can apply an across-the-board policy.”
These salaries are out of sight, but of course not to other high ranking universities. All ships of academic administrstors rise together while adjunct professors do the work at little pay per hour teaching. Now who becomes an academic administrator? After one has spent seven plus years in college to refine one’s specialty to the point where five or so advanced professors agree your dissertation is worthy, one goes on to become an assistant professor. Then one has three years to prove one’s work is worthy of merit to get retained and another four to get tenure. After 14 years or so of carving out a specialty of national significance, who,would become an academic administrstor? Some really good people who care about their colleagues. But from my experience at the U of Michigan. Vanderbilt University, and UNC Ch way to few. Many discover is they do,the drudge work for the administrstor right above them they can get reappointed and then tenure. Once on this course they discover they need to keep only a few above and around them happy to continue on a lucerative career path. This is easier than educating demanding students and trying to get self centered colleagues to work together. When students complain about decisions they say well they are students. And when colleagues complain and have other ideas they say they are prima donas. Meanwhile they and their ilk rise together.
University administrators should be held accountable for their decisions and should be evaluated by successful faculty members. Until this happens these raises and salaries are just like blowing smoke! Sorry to be cynical, but I observed a lot of poor administrators and if you ask any faculty member who,has served more than 10 years most will agree with what I say. Just saying!