New Business Faculty Receive Higher Salaries

By MOLLY HODGES

As the University of Mary Washington College of Business pursues accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB), newly hired professors in the business department are being offered starting salaries significantly higher than those of faculty members who have worked at UMW for years, according to Dean of the College of Business Lynne Richardson.

 “The amount budgeted for faculty salaries in the COB this year is $2,037,408 for 25 faculty,” said Richardson.  This number excludes the associate dean and chair stipends.

According to Richardson, the COB hired two tenure track faculty members this year and one faculty member two years ago.  “The average for these three newest hires is $91,944,” said Richardson. “The faculty average salary for the remaining 22 is $80,072.”

The salaries of the Stafford faculty, 10 of the 25 total staff members, reflect twelve-month contracts while the salaries of the Fredericksburg faculty, the remaining 15 staff members, reflect nine-month contracts.

These averages represent a variety of disciplines within the business department.  According to Richardson, each discipline has market salaries.  A finance professor and a marketing professor, for example, are not going to make the same salary.

This change is occurring as the UMW College of Business (COB) pursues accreditation from the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB).

Since the COB was founded on July 1, 2010, the Board of Visitors has tasked the administrators and faculty with attaining AACSB accreditation.  According to the AACSB International website, “when a school is AACSB-accredited, it sends a message to students, parents, guidance counselors, employers, faculty/staff, and other schools that it is one of the best business schools in the world.”

In an attempt to hire desirable professors, UMW has had to offer market-driven salaries.

“We have to be competitive to hire faculty at higher salaries to get them to come to Mary Washington,” Richardson said.

Last year, President Rick Hurley commissioned a study of the faculty’s salaries.  The goal was to determine how salaries offered at UMW compared to those at other schools.

According to Richardson, there were several departments in which salaries were lacking, including the business department, and now Hurley is considering “how to equitably and fairly raise the salaries, not just of the business faculty, but across campus.”

UMW has traditionally been a teaching school, but AACSB-accredited schools require professors to be actively pursuing research in addition to teaching.

According to the Chair of Accounting and Management Information Systems Department Daniel Hubbard, professors must “publish or perish.”

Hubbard likened the situation to professional sports by stating, “they hire a hot rookie and guess what?  That person might be paid a lot more than someone who’s been playing for years and years and years.”

Richardson and the Associate Dean of Business, Mukesh Srivastava, plan to meet with each faculty member individually to discuss a research plan so that he or she can meet the expectations required of that higher salary.

“We’re going to expect more of our new faculty and more primarily from a research stand point, and then as our faculty here becomes research-active, we will raise their salaries to get them closer to the market rate,” Richardson said.

According to Richardson, due to monetary limitations, this will be a gradual process over the next several years.

“We teach market reactions to supply and demand,” Hubbard said. “It’s always painful when you’re the one confronted by it.”

However, Hubbard maintains that although many current faculty members may have received the news with great frustration, the reality remains that one must adapt to the changing market forces.