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UNM awarded a 10-year contract on Wednesday to men’s basketball head coach Steve Alford with a $240,000 salary increase, but some faculty are wondering about their own pay.
“I find it regrettable that although both athletics and academics occupy the same physical space on the UNM campus, the rules that govern salaries and the performance needed to earn those salaries are not the same,” said Margo Milleret, associate professor of Spanish and Portuguese, in an email. “I applaud the coach for his success in building the Lobos’ basketball team. However, his salary now or in the future exists in a different plane of reality than my own as a professor.”
According to Paul Krebs, UNM’s vice president for Athletics, Alford’s salary increase in the new contract will be financed from basketball revenues, not from student fees or state funds.
According to surveys conducted by the office of the Provost, UNM’s average faculty salaries range from $7,000 to $21,000 less than those at peer universities for professors, associate professors and assistant professors.
According to the report from the office of the provost, the average salaries for professors, associate professors and assistant professors at UNM’s main campus are $103,000, $75,000 and $67,000, respectively.
By comparison, the same report shows the average salaries at peer institutions for professors, associate professors and assistant professors are $123,000, $85,000 and $75,000, respectively.
At the Board of Regents meeting March 11, Amy Neel, an associate professor of speech and hearing sciences and president of the Faculty Senate, said UNM faculty have received no pay raises in four years and increased health care costs and retirement payments have left them with lower effective pay each year.
At the same meeting, Neel also said she heard from the provost and some deans that more than a dozen faculty members have gotten offers from other universities in just the past few weeks, some involving pay increases of $10,000 to $30,000.
Faculty and regents reached an impasse after debate and no definite action was taken on faculty pay raises.
“Like many faculty members, I am excited about the performance of the men’s basketball team and appreciate the job that Coach Alford is doing,” said Neel in an email. “I am confident that UNM administration and the Board of Regents will take requests for substantial increases in faculty and staff compensation seriously during the upcoming budget process because our mission to improve student success, to be a world-class research institution, to provide outstanding health care and to improve economic development in New Mexico depend on the hard work of excellent faculty and staff members.”
The $5.9 billion state budget proposal submitted by the state Legislature for review by Gov. Susana Martinez includes a 1 percent pay increase for state employees, such as teachers. However, because the bill has yet to be signed, the increase is not guaranteed.
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Comments on the Daily Lobo’s Facebook page were varied in their support of the coach’s pay increase.
Denise White expressed her support for the pay increase saying “It’s well deserved!”
Tabatha Bennett said that the fact that university coaches are paid more than teachers is nothing new, and also supported the pay increase.
“Alford’s done a lot for the program, the school and the state; I’m glad we are working to keep him here,” Bennett said.
But Richard Vargas was critical of the coach’s new contract.
“It’s a fact that if you underpay the faculty, the good ones will go somewhere else, and what UNM will attract is the bottom of the barrel. Students suffer,” Vargas said. “But hey, the Lobos are in the big dance. Who gives a rat’s ass?”
Nate Scott simply said Alford’s salary and professors’ salaries couldn’t be compared to each other.
“They’re two totally different budgets,” Scott said.
