The faculty merit pool allows faculty members to be awarded based on their performance at the university, Provost Kim Wilcox said. The market adjustment pool allows for salary increases for talented individuals who might be recruited by other institutions to maintain faculty at MSU, he said.

At MSU, faculty salary increases are not based on a higher cost of living, Wilcox said.

“All of the faculty salary increases are awarded based on merit and competitiveness,” he said.

This 2010-11 academic year, MSU faculty salaries are ranked 10th in the Big Ten, according to data from the MSU Office of Planning and Budgets. The numbers are based on the weighted average of all faculty salaries. Last year, other Big Ten universities projected almost no increase, Moriarty said. However, increases averaged about 2.79 percent. Faculty at MSU received about a 0.8 percent increase.

Typically, institutions share information with one another about potential salary increases to maintain competitiveness.

“We were kind of shocked,” Moriarty said. “Suddenly, we were in shifting sands trying to move to the middle of the Big Ten.”

However, the numbers might not represent the full picture, Wilcox said.

“Many schools last year had unpaid furloughs,” he said. “The actual salary pay looks lower on the page.”

A furlough is a forced leave of absence, in this case unpaid.

Class grading
The potential use of a new, electronic SIRS form also was discussed during the meeting.

The form would provide another option for instructor assessment, said Ron Perry, a member of both the University Committee on Academic Policy and the subcommittee on online SIRS administering.

“Currently, the SIRS form is a standard form used university-wide,” said June Youatt, senior associate provost. “Every department is required to use (some form of a) student survey to rate instruction — right now (departments) don’t have to use the SIRS form.”

In studies, students were given the electronic SIRS form and asked to either fill out the form or decline. If students did not either complete the survey or decline, they could not access their final course grades for one week. About 93 percent of students responded to the survey — including those who declined to complete it — in comparison to about a 32 percent response rate with the paper form.

UCAP members endorsed the recommendation to implement temporary holds on grades in the administration of online SIRS during their meeting March 30.