2015 SUNYLA Salary Survey: A Preliminary Report of the Personnel Policies Committee Eugene J. Harvey Assessment Librarian, SUNY Buffalo State Chair, Personnel Policies Committee Jill Locascio Senior Assistant Librarian, SUNY College of Optometry Nancy Abashian Head of Reader Services & Resource Sharing, Binghamton University Chris Keough Libraries Annex Manager, University at Buffalo

Outline 1)Description, Purpose, Brief History of PPC 2)Salary Reports 3)Methodology - first attempt 4)Methodology - second attempt 5)Analyses & Results 6)Conclusions, Trends, Directions 7)Questions

WHOA! Before we get started… Assume there is a difference in salaries between SUNY faculty and librarians. Write down (or make a mental note of) the answer to the following: Which group earns more? In dollars, how much is the average difference in salaries between these two groups?

Purpose of the Personnel Policies Committee (PPC) Purpose The Personnel Policies Committee is concerned with the development, coordination and implementation of the policies, procedures, and standards of appointment and other terms of employment of SUNY librarians. Salary Surveys (originally every 2 years) Exit Surveys Librarian Equity Learn more at:

History of the PPC Origination and History of PPC 1966 Salary Concerns → inequitable to faculty salaries – “research...though different in detail….should be comparable in seriousness...to instructional faculty” 1968 Recommendations to the Chancellor : – Facilitate professional development of librarians consistent with the needs and resources of the University SUNY Library Directors: – Passed resolution supporting academic year schedule – Four ranks equal to professorial ranks – Remuneration for summer employment – Remuneration equal to professorial compensation for library faculty

History of the PPC SUNYLA Leaders: – Highlighted SUNY’s distressing lack of concern for academic rights of Librarians – Recommended librarians exercise extreme caution before accepting a position in SUNY – UUP Committee on Librarian Concerns serves to bring implementation of salary plan to UUP Executive Board. – Resolves to achieve salaries accurately reflecting the true value and worth of Library Professionals

History of the PPC 2002-TODAY: SUNY library faculty are evaluated by criteria the same as or similar to classroom faculty, but SUNY does not support librarians the way it supports its classroom faculty. Contract Year Inequities Salary Inequities Inequities of Status & Rank

PPC’s Actionable Plan: Salary Survey The Committee conducts, prints, and distributes a SUNY Library Salary Survey, generally every two years, with the time of the final report distribution being such that the data may be useful in contract negotiations. ● Previous surveys: 2006, 2008 ● Large gap from

Issues with previous surveys ● Low participation/response rate ● Incomplete or inadequate representation ● By institutional rank ● By title rank ● Difficulty obtaining data without hurt feelings ● Despite being public data, some people dislike others knowing or investigating their salary

2015 Survey ● Use similar categories as past surveys for data collecting/ comparing ● Create options to make it easier on data collectors ● Step up outreach efforts to improve upon previous failed attempt in 2014

Methodology - First Attempt Sampling method – SUNYLA representatives to gather data for their library staff Original Survey Data obtained, but… – Problems with validity, reliability, and integrity of data! – Inconsistent reporting, also some misunderstandings and confusion despite instructions and coding sheet

Methodology - First Attempt First Survey conducted via Google Form or manual entry into Excel.

Methodology - First Attempt Exported the Google Docs Results into a spreadsheet and combined with the results entered via Excel. We cleaned and tried to normalize the data, but…..

Methodology - Second Attempt Contacted SUNY headquarters – Human Resources - Julie Petti (is the Director of University- wide Human Resources) FOIL Request Data Categories & Sampling Issues pertaining to release of data pertaining to gender and race (limitations) ** Special thank you to Ron SUNY POLY for his comments & guidance **

Sample & Data Cleaning Highlights Sample demographics – Clinical faculty titles were excluded per suggestion from SUNY HR – Gender, Race - aggregate numbers from SUNY HR not able to use in analyses  unable to determine potential impact Campus Type Rank – Faculty of various Full Professor titles were collapsed into same category – Same for Full Librarians Salaries adjusted to 12-month (for all titles)

Sample - Gender *Not able to use in analyses GENDERFacultyLibrarian Female %21472% Male %8528% Grand Total

Sample - Race *Not able to use in analyses RACEFacultyLibrarian Asian %155% Black 5715%103% Other 2182%6 White %26890% Grand Total

Sample - Campus Type Campus Type FacultyLibrarians TCH85111%3110% COL300238%11541% DOC403351%13849% * Major limitation: not able to obtain data for community colleges

Sample - Rank

Audience Participation Which group earns more: faculty, or librarians? In dollars, how much is the average, overall difference in salaries between these two groups?

Statistical Significance Testing

Salaries by Campus Type & Rank Rank by CampusSalary DOC Professor* $167,794 Associate $116,920 Assistant $98,425 Lecturer $76,729 COL Professor* $110,106 Associate $87,433 Assistant $75,662 Lecturer $64,220 TCH Professor* $105,827 Associate $84,878 Assistant $72,511 Lecturer $58,498 Rank by CampusSalary% Difference DOC Librarian $88,164-47% Associate $73,979-37% Sr. Assistant $65,568-33% Assistant $45,681-40% COL Librarian $77,857-29% Associate $79,120-10% Sr. Assistant $60,993-19% Assistant $52,839-18% TCH Librarian $82,983-22% Associate $66,612-22% Sr. Assistant $55,484-23% Assistant $59,689+2% * Full Professor rank includes chairs and distinguished professors, titles/ranks not typically achievable by librarians  skews data upwards (but chose to include…)

Mean Salary Comparison by Rank RankFacultyLibrarians% Difference First Rank (lowest) $66,482$52,736-21% Second Rank $82,199$60,682-26% Third Rank $96,410$73,237-24% Fourth Rank (highest)* $127,909$83,001-35% * Full Professor rank includes chairs and distinguished professors, titles/ranks not typically achievable by librarians  skews data upwards (but chose to include…)

Statistical Significance Testing Other variables affecting salary: – Level of Education – Campus Type – Years of Service in Title – Could be others…but limited to data provided by SUNY HR Statistically, we can control for multiple variables, including those above, and separate their effects/impact using a procedure called Multiple Regression, a form of linear regression. – In a sense, we want to “tease out” the “pure” difference between librarians and faculty without concern for other variables like the ones above.

Statistical Significance Testing VariableCoefficient Education Level$2,685 Years of Service in Title$1,540 Campus Type$24,529

10 Year Salary Comparisons Title % DifferenceAverage % Difference Faculty Professors % Assoc. Profs % Assistant Profs % Lecturers % 6.5% Librarians Full Librarians % Assoc. Libs % Sr. Asst. Libs % Assistant Libs % 16%

Conclusions Summarize findings – Limitations! Lack of CC data Gender Race Emphasize important results Next Steps – Full report forthcoming – later this summer – Need for Advocacy Increase starting salary Hire at rank comparable to faculty Promotion

Questions & Discussion

Thank you! Eugene Jill Nancy Chris