Salary With the Fringe on Top: 2

The recent interest of the University and the Ford Foundation in higher faculty salaries seems truly to herald the dawn of a new age of the uncommon man. Unfortunately, the sun is rising slowly, and the current plan for fringe benefits will only equal ten percent of the present payroll. Faced with the problem of making a little go a long way, and lacking the businessman's padded expense accounts, the Committee on Compensation has shown much ingenuity in circumventing taxes and still distributing the money equitably. Most of its recommendations show its success in evaluating the needs of men at each rank and carefully balancing one against another. Its proposal for scholarships for faculty children, however, seems to favor married senior faculty members, at excessive cost both to the junior faculty and to all single members of the entire faculty. The estimated $100,000 to be used for the scholarship plan should instead be spent in a flat two percent pay increase. Although this would mean some loss of net faculty pay through taxes, the money would be distributed more fairly.

The Committee on Compensation, however, has come to the conclusion that high-ranking members of the faculty ought to receive a bigger share of salary increases than their younger brethren. It points to the fact that since 1930 the full professor's salary has only gone up 30 percent (in the face of a 62 percent rise in the cost of living), while in the same period junior faculty salaries have about doubled. Such a situation, in which the top man in the profession rarely earns much more than twice as much as the bottom man, according to the Committee, fails to take into full account a man's years of service and the skill which won him his position as a full professor. This is a break with Harvard's tradition of recognizing individual excellence: it is in sharp contrast with the practice in other professions which enables them to draw many of the best away from teaching.

This need to recognize "excellence," however, though quite true, has limitations not apparent at first glance. The hitch is that full professors, the "top men," make up some 45 per cent of the professional group. This leaves only a little more than half of the men in the categories of "average" and "beginners," an inversion of the rations in other professions. Thus, the top man argument, which refers to professions in which at most 25 per cent are "top men," is used to justify a salary increase for at least half of the teaching profession. This somewhat invalidates the committee's use of the "excellence" argument, for the support of the whole top half of the profession at the expense of the bottom half imposes some strain.

The value of this plan in attracting the best men to the profession is also partially offset by the fact highly qualified young men are most concerned over how much they can make immediately after entering the profession. Because they often have heavy debts upon completion of setting up a home in a new community, junior faculty members are not particularly heartened by the prospect of luxury during later life.

Although the expense of educating children presses heavily upon many men in their forties and fifties, the financial strain is usually greater during the obstetric and natal period of married life.

Justified, but Not Based on Need

In most of the fringe benefit recommendations the Committee has quite fairly balanced financial needs and justified the proposals by citing the valuable features that offset any objections (as enumerated in yesterday's editorial), With its peculiarly stubborn disadvantages, the scholarship plan is highly objectionable. Although it is largely justified on the basis of need, it is not set up on that principle. The plan gives no consideration to a professor's income in granting a scholarship to his child, although he may receive money from private holdings, such as pay for outside work, the publication of books, etc. Also, it would discriminate against those children who choose to attend a West Coast college, for example, where they may pay a low tuition, but would have high travel expenses.

The plan would also discriminate against the non-married minority of the senior faculty. Those with aged parents or other dependents may be just as "needy" as the family men, and even if they supported no one but themselves, it would seem that they ought to qualify for more money on the supposition that they possess as much "excellence" as any married professor.

In addition, the adoption of transitional retirement and the other recommendations (especially the insurance plan) amounting to eight per cent of the gains, plus the two per cent straight salary increase substituted for the scholarships, would do much to reduce the needs of family men with college age children.

The Corporation should adopt the Committee's recommendations with the modifications mentioned above. By so doing, it would be moving the salaries of low and middle group men up together, and with a promise of eventually providing special rewards for the most excellent men, would best aid both individual faculty members and the University as a whole in the long as well as the short run.