Twelve-month faculty salaries at UCF are the highest of the ten state universities, with an average of $99,750, according to the Florida Department of Education.
Nine-month UCF contracts are the fifth highest in the state at $58,894.
Many instructors think the salary is misleading.
These figures for faculty pay include the salaries of administrators who also teach.
"Average salaries make for interesting reading, but do not reveal the enormous gap between the lowest and highest paid faculty," said Lindee Owens, an English instructor. "Most of us are not making anywhere near the $58,894 average." Owens, whose nine-month salary was $24,020 last year, added, "I have been teaching at UCF for 12 years. I still make far less than a first year K-12 teacher in the Orange County Public Schools."
The new faculty contract (which is currently being finalized between the faculty and the administration) includes an across-the-board 2 percent raise for faculty.
Owens is not alone in her claim. Patricia Angley, an English instructor who is paid $28,632 a year, said administrators are most often selected for raises, and the UCF faculty average is a reflection of that money, not necessarily instructors' or professors' salaries. "Permanent instructors in the English Department generally earn in the mid-20's; visiting instructors earn less," she wrote in an e-mail to the Future. "Adjunct pay is appalling ... There is desperate need for equity across the university." The 17 instructors in the UCF English Department made an average of $25, 189 last year.
Robert Reedy, an art professor, offered an explanation for this uneven distribution of salaries. "You'd be making a big mistake to compare a general average figure based on data gathered by the state, mainly because it does not address the real issue ... gapping." Reedy said that gapping is created in faculty averages when a few members with extremely high salaries are included with hundreds of faculty who make significantly less. It completely throws the average off, thereby making it not the "average salary" at all. Reedy made $62,643 last year.
Dawn Trouard, an English professor and vice president of the UCF United Faculty of Florida, further explained the discrepancy. "Average tells us little; what's really needed are median and mode ... Note also that administrators are guaranteed 12-month salaries. So, though you can convert teacher salaries to 12 months on a table, not all of them can get enough course work or an assignment that funds them full time in the summer. Summer budget allocations for teaching do not permit all teachers to be full time (equivalent of 12 month), so the comparison is deceptive."
Trouard added that typically the most depressed salaries are in the English, arts and humanities, foreign language and literature departments. She made $87,226 last year.
Administrators' pay versus that of the UCF faculty has been an issue for at least a year. During Fall 2003, the UFF shone a light on the high raises several administrators received then, during a so-called budget crisis.
While UCF's state budget was slashed, 33 administrators received raises of more than 10 percent. The administrator's raises cost the school more than $756,000 a year.
Trouard asked, at the time: "How do you justify rewarding upper management while teachers suffer?"
One of the administrators who received a large bonus was John Hitt, university president, whose salary last year was $311,220. The president of the United States makes $400,000 annually.
Second highest on the Board of Education's list for 12-month salaries is the University of Florida, which prior to December of 2003 surpassed UCF. It currently pays its faculty an average of $88,724 a year.
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