U of M prof salaries highest in province
But profs make $15,000 less than other medical-doctoral universities
Joanna Bhaskaran and Chelse McKee, staff
Professors’ salaries at the universities of Manitoba, Winnipeg, and Saskatchewan for 2004-05, from StatsCan.
University of Manitoba professors are the highest paid in Manitoba, according to a recent study released by Statistics Canada. However, U of M professors still made less than many other large Canadian universities, in addition to having some of the highest differentials between male and female professors and between full professors and lecturers.
The report, “Salary and Salary Scales of Full-Time Teaching Staff at Canadian Universities,” released by Statistics Canada on Jan. 9, analyzed the average salaries of full-time teaching staff for more than 70 Canadian universities during 2004-05.
The annual survey was conducted by University and College Academic Staff Survey. The targets of the survey were full-time academics who had signed on for a contract of 12 months or more.
At the University of Manitoba, the average salary of a member of the teaching faculty — including deans but excluding teaching assistants and the two highest-paid faculties — was $83,002 for associate professors and $111,650 for full professors. When the latter Faculties of Medicine and Dentistry were included, the average income grew to $88,397 and $115,496 respectively.
At the University of Winnipeg, the average income for full professors was $97,452 and $99,347 at Brandon University.
According to Sandy Herschovis, an assistant professor at the Asper School of Business who researches employee well-being, professors’ salaries depend on a number of factors, including whether the professor is hired on the “tenure-track.” Those professors, Herschovis said, have a strong record of teaching and publication and are on their way to permanent positions.
She said, “It also depends on the department because professors in the business school probably earn more than professors in humanities or social sciences and also on your rank, whether you are an assistant professor, an associate professor or a full-time professor. Full-time professors are internationally renowned, so they would obviously be earning higher salaries.”
The U of M average income was $13,746 less than full-time professors at the University of Saskatchewan, $14,938 less than the University of British Columbia, and $15,541 less than the University of Toronto.
Sessional professors — often graduate students — make $8,657 per six-credit-hour course, according to Jason Kelly, the president of the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE) 3903.
Starting salaries for UMFA members are set by management and do not have to correspond to the salary scale in the collective agreement between the university and UMFA. Although salaries lower than the salary scale cannot be offered, people in certain faculties could be offered salaries higher than any maximums on the salary scale by the management.
According to Brenda Austin-Smith, a professor at the U of M and president of the University of Manitoba Faculty Association (UMFA), “Starting salaries can vary wildly depending on the faculty you are hired to work in. Professors hired in Nursing, Arts, and Science [tend] to have lower starting salaries than profs hired in professional faculties. We at UMFA would like to see less of this difference: we feel that all professors here do the same work of research, teaching and service, and should not be paid less for this work because they work in different faculties, schools or departments.”
At the U of M, the average salary for male professors was $94,505, and female professors made $79,692. Women at the university still make an average of nearly $15,000 less than their male counterparts.
Male professors also make approximately $15,000 more than female professors at Brandon University. At the U of W, the difference is $8,000.
Austin-Smith said that although some individual women are quite well-paid, systemic salary discrimination is a real problem in Canada.
“Three researchers from the Faculty of Arts carried out a sex and salary analysis here which reveals a significant and persistent salary differential between men and women professors. “At universities across the country, women are still paid lower salaries than their male colleagues. Unless you want to argue that women, as an entire sex, are fundamentally unable to do academic work as well as men are, and so deserve the lower salaries that they, on average, receive, it is clear that something persistent and discriminatory is going on.”
UMFA signed a three-year collective agreement this fall, avoiding a strike. With this contract, UMFA secured percentage increases to their salaries of 2.5, 2.5, and 2.9 per cent over three years, plus $500 increases in each year of the agreement.
“These lump-sum payments were meant to help those at the bottom of the pay scale more than percentage increases do and so alleviate in a way we worked to undo some of the damage done to our members by the differential salaries,” Austin-Smith said.
