It is my great pleasure to announce that St. Thomas will add $1.5 million in market equity funds over the next two years to the full-time faculty salary pool.
The additional dollars will enable us to remain more competitive with national faculty salary averages as measured by the College and University Professional Association (CUPA).
The investment will allow us to address market equity gaps for about 160 faculty members – or slightly more than one third of our 467 faculty.
The recession made it difficult to provide equity increases over the last couple of years, but we have been able to identify funds for raises that will take effect as early as January or February for some faculty. The majority of recipients will be in the College of Arts and Sciences, but increases will occur across all of our programs.
I also want to inform you that I am working with Dr. Mark Dienhart, executive vice president and chief operating officer, and Edna Comedy, associate vice president for human resources, to identify equity increase funds for staff members.
We have not determined when we will be able to deliver those increases, but we hope they can occur over the next couple of years.
