Average salary not an accurate measure without more data

Editor,

I have been interested in the recent articles addressing the salaries of UNM staff, faculty and administrators. The compensation structure seems to be blatantly offensive to the staff and faculty. It should be a source of keen embarrassment and shame for the higher-salaried administrators. I have observed that expression of those emotions is inversely proportional to gross annual income.

I would, however, point out that when the commentators on staff and faculty pay say that their own salary and that of most of their colleagues is much lower than the average mentioned by some administrator, they should request more statistical data to find out what the situation really is. For example, in the Feb. 19 cover article, professor Gary Weissman offered to guarantee that "most faculty on this campus" made much less than the stated average of $94,000. This is offensive and unfortunately true.

The more interesting question is what are the maximum and minimum salaries, and how many people fall into which range? I am quite certain that some of the faculty members are earning adequate sums to pull the average up. Professors such as surgery professor Jorge Wernly earn $412,000 per year. And is Steve Alford's huge salary considered in these averages? A 2007 Technology Marketing Center article states one out of 11 UNM employees earns six figures. That would go far to increase the average staff or faculty salary. And then there are all the employee salaries that pull the average down. What is the distribution? We should remember that in this case, a mathematical average doesn't really tell us much.

Jeff Thompson

UNM staff