By
Daniel Scarpinato
Arizona Summer Wildcat
As recruiters show increased interest in UA professors, officials struggle to keep faculty salaries competitive and avoid the dreaded "brain drain"
Over the past decade, funding for Arizona's three state universities has dropped and UA officials have struggled to keep faculty salaries competitive.
But as the marketplace for faculty at the nation's top universities becomes more complex and competitive, many UA professors are finding higher-paying jobs elsewhere.
Private industry and out-of-state universities that are willing and able to far surpass the university's comparatively-low salaries have swept up many of the UA's top professors and researchers, leaving many department rankings slipping.
With the departure of talented faculty, UA officials and department heads are faced with a dilemma of how to pay leading educators at an under-funded institution.
Flooding the pipes
Unable to compete with salary offers that faculty members are receiving from other institutions, the UA history department recently suffered a case of brain drain.
After 29 years with the UA, Donna Guy, a Latin American history professor, left the department for a job at Ohio State University.
Richard Cosgrove, head of the history department, said losing Guy was a major blow to the department.
"In her field of (Latin American) gender studies, she in one of the most prominent professors nationwide," he said.
Cosgrove said the department tried its best to hold on to Guy, but the UA's offer did not stand up to the package that Ohio State offered the professor.
"I feel badly that she is leaving," Cosgrove said. "The loss of a single person is a problem."
Ohio State offered Guy $40,000 more then the UA did to move east, Cosgrove said.
Cosgrove said Guy is now at the top of her career because of the studies she did in her nearly three decades with the university. Now the department and its students will not reap the benefits of her achievements.
Elizabeth Ervin, vice provost for academic affairs, said some of UA's most tenured faculty tend to be the ones who leave for more money or benefits.
Some departures are understandable considering, according to Ervin, university cost of living salary increases in recent years have been just 2 percent annually.
The projected increase for the next two years will be 5 percent per year.
That is not enough, Ervin said, because in other states, large research institutions similar to the UA have 6 to 9 percent annual salary increases.
Ervin said the university tries to do its best to prevent widespread exodus without harming the school's academic mission.
"We have a pool of money for retention purposes," Ervin said. "It comes from many places. We're taking money out of a line that would be used to hire another faculty member. Then that instructor cannot be hired."
Ervin said in general, salaries for faculty are nearly 40 percent higher at other institutions.
"Our resources don't allow us to compete," she said. "State allocations have been under what the universities have needed. When you have this low funding, you start to chip away at the faculty."
A leak in the system
Cosgrove said the brain drain dilemma originated when the university built up its reputation in the mid-1980s.
After that, the university was able to attract high-quality but expensive faculty, a plan that worked well until budget cuts in the early 1990s made large salaries a burden on the school.
Jory Hancock, chair of the UA Faculty Senate, agreed and said funding was "not very healthy" in the 90s.
Hancock said the state started having mid-year budget cuts at that time, and those cuts took a toll on the university.
"The kind of funding available to state and private universities is more narrow then years ago," he said.
For many departments, brain drain and its effects on faculty retention and quality has meant a drop in academic ranking.
Tom Peterson, head of the engineering department, described brain drain as a problem that spirals.
"The biggest problem is that we are falling further and further behind," Peterson said.
Peterson said the engineering department, which currently has 20 open positions, had seven cases last year of faculty that considered leaving for more money.
Peterson said this creates a need to fill empty positions and attract instructors at entry-level positions by paying them the same or more than faculty that have been with the department for some time.
In addition, he said losing faculty to recruiters has made it harder to maintain a ranking.
Hancock said some faculty members believe the university puts its building projects above its faculty.
He does not agree, however.
"Bricks and mortar are about people," he said. "People who ask for bricks and mortar have the same motivation as anyone else, which is to make this a better place to learn for the students."
Hancock believes the new buildings have helped the university maintain many faculty members despite budget cuts and low salaries.
"There is a spirit among the faculty, a dedication, to stay and carry out projects and help students," he said.
Trying to clog things up
Although most UA officials are concerned about brain drain and its negative and possibly lasting effect on the university, few see a solution to the problem in the near future.
This past year, Gov. Jane Dee Hull and the Joint Legislative Budget Committee put aside $5 million for a special "brain drain fund" to help Arizona's three large universities combat the epidemic.
Ervin, however, doesn't see the situation improving dramatically anytime soon.
"I don't think there is one fix," she said. "(The solution) has to be a combination of state dollars, tuition dollars, and research dollars."
Ervin, however, understands the problem cannot be solved entirely on the backs of the students.
"I'm sure that we will seek a reasonable tuition increase," she added.
Associated Students President Ray Quintero said he will fight against a tuition increase should one be proposed for the next academic year.
"(ASUA) understands that it's important to hold onto our professors," he said. "But this is a state institution and it should be funded by the state, not by the students."
Peterson said that the engineering department has chosen to be proactive about the problem.
The department is working on allocating its own funds through private donations to compensate faculty when the university cannot.
Hancock believes increasing enrollment may help the problem, but he also said brain drain is only in its beginning stages.
"It's a threat to what we aspire to be," he said. "This is a quality institution."
