Tuesday, April 19, 2005 | 9:21 a.m.
Faculty at both UNLV and UNR make slightly more money than the national average, but several thousand more than their peers in other Mountain West states, according to a new report released Monday by the American Association of University Professors.
Tenured professors at the universities also make significantly more than their lower ranked peers, and often more than twice what a full-time, non-tenure track instructor makes.
A full professor at UNLV earns $98,900 a year on average, compared with $97,500 nationally and $89,400 in the Mountain West states, which include Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming.
Associate professors make $73,400 at UNLV, compared with $68,600 nationally and $64,850 in the Mountain West. Assistant professors make $60,600 at UNLV, $58,300 nationwide and $56,300 in the Mountain West.
UNLV sets salaries based on several different factors, to make sure they are competitive on a national level for each individual discipline, said Dawn Neuman, vice provost of academic resources.
"It's really kind of a delicate balance to make the whole thing work," Neuman said. "We try to figure out the best salary that allows the unit to compete, allows us to compete, and what we think it will take to hire person."
The university consults with two national databases for faculty salaries, the College and University Professional Association Human Resources (CUPA HR) database and the Oklahoma State University national database, and with various societies that track salaries both in and outside of higher education, Neuman said. The university also tracks cost-of-living and makes adjustments depending on what city the candidate is moving from.
Cost-of-living is the main reason UNLV and UNR may pay higher salaries than the averages among other Mountain West universities, Neuman said. Recent cost-of-living indicators show Las Vegas as about two to three percent more expensive than the national average, mainly because of a rise in housing and health costs.
Several online tabulators showed Las Vegas to be more expensive than almost all college and university towns in the Mountain West, sometimes by upward of 20 percent.
Cost-of-living can still be a plus for the university when recruiting from cities on the East Coast or from California, Neuman said, but for the most part its another factor that drives up the hiring costs.
Many professors at UNLV may make significantly more or less than the average reported because of variances among disciplines, Neuman said.
For instance, according to CUPA, the national average for a full-time professor in civil engineering at a doctoral intensive institution like UNLV is $97,766, with salaries topping out at as high as $185,000 a year.
Full-time business professors average $114,000 a year, topping out at more than $211,000.
But a full journalism professor will average only $68,000 a year, reaching only as high as $88,000; and a full sociology professor will make about $73,000 annually with a high of $129,000.
"It's the nature of the beast," Neuman said. Many of the discipline-based salaries are driven by what is paid outside of academia.
Men make more than women at UNLV and across the nation, according to the report, but the main factor influencing that is that men hold more full professorships that pay more, Neuman said.
About 197 men hold full professorships at UNLV compared with 45 women, Neuman said. Similarly, 152 men hold associate professorships compared with 85 women.
Those are historical trends, Neuman said, because it takes a good dozen years to become a full professor and six to become an associate professor. The small gap between assistant professors, 171 males to 104 women, shows that the disparity is decreasing with the newer hires, Neuman said.
Still, salaries between men and women are only a couple of thousand part, Neuman said, with male full professors making about $99,300 a year and women making $97,200 year.
Gender disparity is a national trend, according to the AAUP report, and one that needs to be addressed more.
Reliance on instructors rather than tenure-track faculty has also increased nationally, as universities rely on these instructors to meet immediate scheduling needs or to save costs, according to the AAUP report. Part-time instructors often, however, do not have the same credentials as tenure-track faculty and are not able to foster a connection with students because they are not on campus.
Instructors are typically, but not always, graduate students working toward a terminal degree, Neuman said. UNLV has about 800 part-time instructors, but the university in enacting a new program to convert more of those instructors to full-time staff who will have more a direct impact on the university.
About 20 will become full-time this fall, Neuman said.
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