MAKE $60K THE FLOOR FOR ALL PITT FACULTY
Currently there is no minimum salary for faculty at Pitt. This has led to a situation in which there are full-time faculty earning less than $40,000/year. This is not an acceptable salary for professionals with advanced degrees, years of experience, and unique expertise in their subject matter. The Compensation proposal we presented to the administration called for a minimum $60,000 annual salary for all full-time faculty, and the same minimum (prorated) for part-time faculty.
On November 17, the administration presented a counterproposal that included a $60k floor for some full-time faculty members. Notably, their proposal excludes full-time faculty members with visiting or instructor titles from any salary floor. It also excludes faculty members who work in the Falk School, proposing a minimum of only $40k for these faculty members. This is less than the starting salary earned by teachers working in Pittsburgh Public Schools. With these carveouts, the administration’s proposal would create a fair salary floor for fewer than forty percent of the full-time faculty who currently make less than $60,000. For part-time faculty, the administration proposed a floor that would be the equivalent of an $18,000 annual salary for faculty at the regional campuses and $31,200 annual salary for faculty at the Oakland campus if they were to teach a full course load.
What the administration doesn’t seem to understand is that we all do the same work. All faculty, regardless of their title, full-time or part-time status, or school, teach courses, mentor students, conduct research, care for patients, and/or perform service. Students pay the same tuition regardless of the title or status of the faculty member teaching their courses. If the administration acknowledges that some faculty deserve at least a $60,000 annual salary for doing this work, that means that all of our colleagues deserve at least this much, including visiting faculty, instructors, Falk faculty, and part-time faculty prorated to their contributions. We ALL deserve a salary that reflects our education, experience, and the vital work that we provide to the university. We are calling on the administration to extend their proposed $60k floor to all full-time Pitt faculty regardless of their title or school and to prorate this floor for part-time faculty on the basis of their percentage of a full-time workload.
Below are stories from faculty with visiting and instructor titles, Falk faculty, and part-time faculty members describing the vital work that they do to keep our institution running:
On November 17, the administration presented a counterproposal that included a $60k floor for some full-time faculty members. Notably, their proposal excludes full-time faculty members with visiting or instructor titles from any salary floor. It also excludes faculty members who work in the Falk School, proposing a minimum of only $40k for these faculty members. This is less than the starting salary earned by teachers working in Pittsburgh Public Schools. With these carveouts, the administration’s proposal would create a fair salary floor for fewer than forty percent of the full-time faculty who currently make less than $60,000. For part-time faculty, the administration proposed a floor that would be the equivalent of an $18,000 annual salary for faculty at the regional campuses and $31,200 annual salary for faculty at the Oakland campus if they were to teach a full course load.
What the administration doesn’t seem to understand is that we all do the same work. All faculty, regardless of their title, full-time or part-time status, or school, teach courses, mentor students, conduct research, care for patients, and/or perform service. Students pay the same tuition regardless of the title or status of the faculty member teaching their courses. If the administration acknowledges that some faculty deserve at least a $60,000 annual salary for doing this work, that means that all of our colleagues deserve at least this much, including visiting faculty, instructors, Falk faculty, and part-time faculty prorated to their contributions. We ALL deserve a salary that reflects our education, experience, and the vital work that we provide to the university. We are calling on the administration to extend their proposed $60k floor to all full-time Pitt faculty regardless of their title or school and to prorate this floor for part-time faculty on the basis of their percentage of a full-time workload.
Below are stories from faculty with visiting and instructor titles, Falk faculty, and part-time faculty members describing the vital work that they do to keep our institution running:
Alana DeLoge, PhD, MA, MPH
Instructor 2
Department of Linguistics
Oakland Campus
Instructor 2
Department of Linguistics
Oakland Campus
I have been a full-time instructor since 2016 and am the Quechua Language Program Coordinator and the sole instructor for all six levels of Quechua instruction at Pitt. As such, I am responsible for designing and maintaining the Quechua language program, in addition to teaching all of the classes. Further, I teach an English-medium course on Global Quechua and linguistics courses such as, Introduction to Linguistics, Cross-Cultural Communication, and Languages of the World. I have also taught in both Bolivia and Ecuador as study abroad faculty, including serving as the director of Pitt in Bolivia, a summer study abroad program, from 2015-2018. I frequently am a guest lecturer in other departments and for student organizations, and I do substantial outreach and community engagement with the Quechua students. I participate in job searches for other language faculty, advise on Fulbright committees, serve as a member of undergraduate thesis committees, help in the coordination of national conferences, and serve on grant funding committees. Since 2019, I have been a co-director of the Quechua Innovation and Teaching Initiative (QINTI), an international collaborative project of language teaching, advocacy, and activism, housed at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. We are developing a multi-dialectal open-access Quechua language textbook and are actively engaged in the scholarship of teaching and learning through conference presentations, publications, and hosting international events. I have recently secured funding to continue the work of my dissertation and am eager to return to the research that I do in Cochabamba, Bolivia. Also more recently, I have completed the training necessary to become a member of the Survivors Support Network at Pitt, so I will be able to support people on campus who have experienced sexual misconduct.
As is evident, I do much more than teach the courses required for my instructor position. However, there is very little room for growth (in either pay or type of position that I hold). I first came to Pitt in 2004 as a graduate student and have spent all but two years since then in student and faculty roles. I have completed an MA, an MPH, and a PhD, all from Pitt. Both my work as a graduate student and later as faculty demonstrate longevity and dedication the university. I am also trying to create a life in which my child can thrive. I do all that I have described in this testimonial as a solo mother (meaning no other parent or other parent’s salary) to a three-year old. My salary alone supports both of us. The work that I do at Pitt merits, and my little family deserves, a salary that compensates adequately.
Instructors like me are crucial to support Pitt’s outstanding students. As we are here to help students thrive, we should also be encouraged to thrive in our own right, professionally and personally, as well as for the benefit of our students and Pitt as an institution. Fair compensation for the work that we do is necessary to accomplish this.
As is evident, I do much more than teach the courses required for my instructor position. However, there is very little room for growth (in either pay or type of position that I hold). I first came to Pitt in 2004 as a graduate student and have spent all but two years since then in student and faculty roles. I have completed an MA, an MPH, and a PhD, all from Pitt. Both my work as a graduate student and later as faculty demonstrate longevity and dedication the university. I am also trying to create a life in which my child can thrive. I do all that I have described in this testimonial as a solo mother (meaning no other parent or other parent’s salary) to a three-year old. My salary alone supports both of us. The work that I do at Pitt merits, and my little family deserves, a salary that compensates adequately.
Instructors like me are crucial to support Pitt’s outstanding students. As we are here to help students thrive, we should also be encouraged to thrive in our own right, professionally and personally, as well as for the benefit of our students and Pitt as an institution. Fair compensation for the work that we do is necessary to accomplish this.
James Hill, PhD
Visiting Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Advisor
History Department
Oakland Campus
Visiting Assistant Professor and Undergraduate Advisor
History Department
Oakland Campus
I’ve been at Pitt as a Visiting Assistant Professor in the History Department since 2019. During that time, I’ve done the work that one would expect of a full-time, permanent member of my department. I’ve taught several courses, including the Introductory Reading and Writing Seminar that helps train and prepare our undergraduate majors and walks them through how to produce a research paper. I’ve developed a course on 20th century Native American history which is currently undergoing review for adoption. I’ve conducted and published research, completing my book Creek Internationalism in an Age of Revolution in the summer of 2021 and publishing an article that year that won a prize from the Florida Historical Society for the best article in history of Florida. I’ve served on numerous department committees, specifically our Diversity Committee and our Undergraduate Committee. I helped draft our Department’s Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Plan. I’ve participated in job searches for tenure-track colleagues. Since 2020, I’ve been an Academic Advisor in our department, in any given semester, I have had between 100 and 120 assigned advisees. Teaching, research, service – I’ve done it all –yet as Visiting Faculty, I am locked into a lower pay scale with no possibility of promotion. Pitt relies on visiting faculty like me to perform crucial roles. The pay and benefits that they offer us should reflect the work we do at this university.
Megan O’Brien M.A.T.
Falk School Faculty
School of Education
Oakland Campus
Falk School Faculty
School of Education
Oakland Campus
I’m a master teacher at the Falk School and have been teaching here since 2002. During my time, I have been a part of many changes such as a building remodel and expansion, four different directors and three interim directors. Teachers like myself in the K- 5 grades have gone from having class sizes max of 20 students per room to now 24. Not only do I have the responsibility of running my classroom and in charge of 24 students, I am also required to be a mentor to student teachers. The stipend we get for this nowhere near covers the amount of time teachers give to mentoring. Every teacher at Falk is also expected to be a part of a curriculum committee, as well. We attend weekly faculty meetings every Monday after school from 4-5, attend weekly team meetings during our planning periods, supervise recess daily, and eat lunch with the students. Many teachers, including myself, are also a part of outside committees. I have been a faculty fellow at the Center for Urban Education and am also a teacher fellow at the P.R.I.D.E (Positive Racial Identity Development in Early Education) program since its inception.
I enjoy these outside opportunities to enhance my work with equity and inclusion, but they do require extra time and effort that is unpaid. Despite all of this work, our wages are not competitive with those of teachers at other schools. I have to have a part time job to bring in extra money to make ends meet. Falk school relies on its teachers to have a school with a good reputation, but more and more teachers continue to leave Falk every year as we are not paid a competitive wage. A $60k floor is necessary to attract the best new teachers and retain the excellent faculty we currently have at the Falk School.
I enjoy these outside opportunities to enhance my work with equity and inclusion, but they do require extra time and effort that is unpaid. Despite all of this work, our wages are not competitive with those of teachers at other schools. I have to have a part time job to bring in extra money to make ends meet. Falk school relies on its teachers to have a school with a good reputation, but more and more teachers continue to leave Falk every year as we are not paid a competitive wage. A $60k floor is necessary to attract the best new teachers and retain the excellent faculty we currently have at the Falk School.
Sabrina Spiher Robinson, MFA
Part-Time Faculty
Department of Slavic Languages and Literature
Oakland Campus
Part-Time Faculty
Department of Slavic Languages and Literature
Oakland Campus
I actually started teaching at Pitt as an undergraduate teaching assistant in 2003 and 2004, for the Slavic Department course Russian Fairy Tales. After graduate school in Michigan, I was invited back to be a part-time faculty member in the department, where I’ve taught a full course load(three three-credit courses every spring and fall term) for the last fifteen years — until I was elected to the bargaining committee of the Faculty Union and temporarily reduced my work to 2-2. In my time as a teacher here, I’ve team-taught Russian Fairy Tales to two Best Course awards from the Pitt News, developed two courses — Madness and Madmen in Russian Culture and Science Fiction: East and West — for online instruction for CGS (well before Covid made everyone move online), completely revamped and diversified the syllabi for all of the courses I teach, and mentored countless students. I’ve devoted my professional life — and certainly “full-time” effort, hours, and ever-increasing expertise — to teaching at Pitt for a decade and a half, and I deserve equal pay for equal work. The teaching I do here is no worse and no less important than the teaching of a full-time faculty member.
Jackie Powell, PhD
Lab Instructor I, Director of Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratories
Department of Chemistry
Oakland Campus
Lab Instructor I, Director of Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratories
Department of Chemistry
Oakland Campus
After a series of part-time and visiting lab instructor appointments, I was hired as a Lab Instructor in 2019 in the Department of Chemistry. Lab instruction is an essential part of our field, and laboratory classes are a core part of our teaching mission. Since I was hired as a Lab Instructor, my teaching assignments have included lab program administration and supervising graduate student lab instructors (currently as the Director of Undergraduate Organic Chemistry Laboratories), teaching large lecture courses (>200 students), and advising dozens of chemistry majors. Many faculty in my department with instructor titles teach classes that are the same as those taught by faculty with professor titles. While I am happy to take on these time-consuming duties and support our department’s teaching mission, I am less thrilled that the University’s most recent proposal excludes instructors from the $60,000 salary floor. My title as a Lab Instructor does not mean that my work is less important than the work of faculty with professor titles, and to be excluded from the $60k floor based on a job title is unacceptable. Our instructors, whether visiting or full-time, deserve to be paid equally for our equal work, regardless of an arbitrary job title.
