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Lisa Botshon is professor of English at the University of Maine at Augusta and president of the UMA chapter of the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine. These are her views and do not express those of the University of Maine System or the University of Maine at Augusta. Botshon is a member of the Maine chapter of the Scholars Strategy Network, which brings together scholars across the country to address public challenges and their policy implications. Members’ columns appear in the BDN every other week.
Over the course of the fall semester, I surveyed my colleagues in the University of Maine System (UMS) to determine what they want to see in our next contract, which is being negotiated this academic year, and, perhaps, beyond. Full-time faculty members in UMS belong to the Associated Faculties of the Universities of Maine (AFUM), and they’ve overwhelmingly articulated the need for increased salaries.
This has been particularly evident among recently hired faculty members throughout the university system. These faculty members are integral to Maine’s future. They are at the most advanced levels in their fields and, I believe, among the best teachers and scholars in the state, bringing new ideas and fresh perspectives to Maine classrooms, journals, laboratories, galleries, clinics, and the like.
The success of UMS in educating Maine students and advancing knowledge relies upon supporting such faculty members. But this group of professors also experiences the greatest pressure to achieve. They have not yet been awarded tenure, and are typically among the least well-paid of our colleagues.
Mainers are no strangers to the ravages of high inflation rates of the last several years, and our colleagues are among those who have lost real wages during this period. One study estimates that the typical American household requires an additional $11,434 a year to maintain the standard of living they had in January 2021, right before inflation soared.
Professors have not been immune to this financial scenario. Earlier this year, Inside Higher Education reported that between the fall of 2019 and the fall of 2022, the buying power of faculty salaries nationwide fell by a cumulative 7.5 percent. And these numbers are based on national averages, which can be higher than the salaries in the Maine university system.
It is dispiriting that a junior faculty member might find it nearly impossible to live in Maine on a single salary. Indeed, the MIT Living Wage Calculator for Androscoggin County demonstrates that a single adult needs at least $32,761 annually in order to pay for basic necessities such as food, housing, health care, and transportation. One newer UMS faculty member I spoke to noted that finding any sort of housing would have been tricky without a salaried partner; their mortgage on a modest ranch would require two thirds of their salary.
The housing situation is so dire in Maine that Bowdoin College is offering staff forgivable loans for up to 10 percent (capped at $50,000) of the purchase price on a home within 40 miles of their campus. Bowdoin faculty members can earn almost twice as much as UMS faculty members on average, so they are already in more financially sustainable positions.
Add just one child into the mix and the Living Wage Calculator’s required annual income jumps to $69,943 a year in Androscoggin County. This amount far exceeds the average starting salary at the University of Maine at Augusta, where I work. In 2021, the year of the most recent calculator of Maine child care rates available, full-time child care for one infant in Androscoggin County was estimated to be $215 per week. One colleague has suggested that this amount is at least 10 percent higher this year. It is no wonder, then, that faculty members with children often find their salaries are gobbled up by the costs of childcare.
This past summer the Chronicle of Higher Education surveyed more than a thousand adults about how well colleges serve students and society. According to this research, 79 percent said colleges’ role in building a skilled workforce is extremely or very important; 68 percent believed that college is extremely or very important to developing a well-informed citizenry.
The University of Maine System is well poised to serve the people of Maine to accomplish these and other goals. But only if it adequately supports the very people who do the work of the university. Increasing faculty salaries in this next contract year to keep apace with inflation will allow us to attract and retain talented faculty members to ensure the future of our state.
