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New Report Shows Little Growth in Salaries for History Faculty

[Robert Townsend is the AHA’s assistant director for research and publications.]

Historians in academia saw little, if any improvement in their wages over the past academic year, as average salaries for regular full-time faculty at most ranks grew by less than 1 percent according to a new study from the College and University Personnel Association for Human Resources (CUPA–HR). This represents the smallest average increase in salaries for historians in 15 years.

To make matters worse, the report also reinforces the dismal evidence in the AHA’s recent job report. The CUPA–HR data shows a 30 percent decrease in year-to-year hiring of new assistant professors—the largest such decline in their tabulations (stretching back to the 1984–85 academic year)....

These findings are available in the CUPA—HR’s 2009–10 National Faculty Salary Survey, which reports on the 9- to 10-month salaries (excluding other forms of compensation and benefits) of full-time faculty. The numbers are derived from salaries in place as of October 2009, but these are based on the contracted wages, thus possibly excluding information about the effect of recent furloughs at many institutions....
Read entire article at Robert Townsend in Perspectives