How much money does a member of the Dickinson faculty make?

Dickinson faculty salaries have grown faster than national averages, with the mean stipend for a tenure line professor at this school at $85,300, according to Provost Neil Weissman.

Weissman explained that, for the current academic year, professors make on average $110,500 annually, associate professors have a salary of $84,100 per year and assistant professors average about $68,000.

The upswing is not rare. A recent survey published in The Chronicle of Higher Education showed an increase in average annual pay for college faculty that matches inflation. Salaries for faculty have increased by 3.6 percent this academic year, at about the rate of inflation, according to Weissman. Since 2006-2007, salaries grew steadily by 4 percent each year until 2012. In 2009-2010, thefinancial crisis forced the school to freeze most of faculty’s salaries and give raises only to professors tenured or promoted and to junior faculty below $60,400. In 2011-2012 the increase was 5.7 percent.

These numbers are higher than other private, independent colleges similar to Dickinson, according to Weissman.

“The national averages for [those colleges] at those ranks are $104,335, $76,993, and $62,763,” said Weissman.

Weissman thinks it is important to compare Dickinson to other similar institutions.

“The national average [$84,000 according to The Chronicle] is a bit misleading in that it includes universities,” he said. “The chief difference is that they include graduate programs, among them business and law schools, and the pay scale for faculty in these programs is different than that of liberal arts colleges, and often higher.”

Weissman said that a better measure for schools like Dickinson is the average for baccalaureate institutions.

“Dickinson salaries are in the 87-88 highest percentile of all American Association of University Professors (AAUP) baccalaureate institutions surveyed,” said Weissman. He added that Dickinson’s goal, as stated in the Strategic Plan III, is to reach the 90 percentile.

“It is important to remember that we compete with America’s leading colleges and universities to recruit and retain the best faculty,” said Weissman. “When we do salary comparisons to calculate annual raises, we benchmark against a very competitive list of peers.”

The list, which can be found on Dickinson’s Institutional Research’s website under “Dean’s Group,” includes Franklin & Marshall, Middlebury, and Gettysburg among other colleges.

Dickinson faculty qualify for a comprehensive benefit package, reported Weissman.

“It includes a seven percent  of salary contribution to retirement; access to the college’s health insurance program for faculty, their families and same-sex partners; life and disability insurance; tuition assistance for dependents; and other benefits,” he said. “We also provide faculty with a range of funding for research and development to support their scholarship and teaching.”

Professor of French and Film Studies Nancy Mellerski praises the benefits Dickinson offers to its faculty, “especially the fact that tuition for children is partially covered. It’s a great advantage,” she said.

According to Mellerski, the salary for full professors makes for a good standard of living in a town such as Carlisle, although she doesn’t have to support any children, which would make a difference.

“No faculty member[s], though, are ever going to tell you that they get paid enough,” said Mellerski. “For all the time that we spend preparing our careers, I would say we are underpaid. If you are in the law business, instead, you spend three years in law school and then you make three, four, even more times what we make.”