Dear Truman Faculty and Administrators:
The primary mission of the Truman AAUP Chapter is to advocate for faculty interests, and for that reason, we value, prioritize, and encourage clear communication and transparency. Some faculty members have expressed confusion about the salary raises that were approved at the December 2024 Board of Governors meeting and that went into effect in January 2024. We hope to help faculty understand the context and impact of these raises.
This year’s raises focused on creating new salary floors by rank across faculty and schools and prioritized increases to starting salaries for new Truman faculty (NTT and TT) as well as current TT Assistant Professors. There is and will continue to be variation in faculty salaries by school, discipline, department, etc.
These salary floors are intended to serve as the minimum salary a faculty member at the given rank can earn. However, existing NTT and Associate/Full Professors only received a percentage of the raise to their new salary floors.
The 2024 salary floors and the raises that current faculty received are as follows:
| Rank | Floor | 2024 Raise = Percent of difference between 2023 salary and floor |
| NTT Instructor | $52,700 | 25% |
| NTT Assistant Professor | $58,900 | 25% |
| TT Assistant Professor | $62,000 | 100% |
| Associate Professor | $65,800 | 50% |
| Full Professor | $73,300 | 50% |
The minimum across-the-board raise was $1,000 and the maximum raise was $7,500. Therefore, some faculty did not even receive the full raise towards the salary floor if the difference between their 2023 salary and the new floor was more than $7,500.
The AAUP supports faculty salary increases, comprehensive base salary development/reform, and fair compensation for faculty contributions on Truman’s campus. We also recognize that these raises are resulting in significant salary compression and inversion. Inversion will occur for dozens of faculty in the School of Arts & Letters, School of Social & Cultural Studies, School of Science & Mathematics, and the School of Health Sciences & Education.
We have listed some examples to illustrate how inversion will occur to clarify the impact of these salary decisions and their impact on current Truman faculty:
| Inversion Examples | |||||||
| Position | School | Years at Rank | 2023 Salary | Newly established salary floor | 2024 Raise | 2024 Salary | Inversion (compared to new hire or newly promoted colleague at same rank) |
| NTT Assistant Professor | SAL | 4 | $46,300 | $58,900 | $3,150 | $49,450 | $9,450 |
| NTT Assistant Professor | SSCS | 4 | $46,320 | $58,900 | $3,145 | $49,465 | $9,435 |
| Associate Professor | SSHE | 5 | $61,097 | $65,800 | $2,352 | $63,449 | $2,351 |
| Associate Professor | SAL | 2 | $57,435 | $65,800 | $4,665 | $62,100 | $3,700 |
| Professor | SAL | 6 | $70,659 | $73,300 | $1,321 | $71,980 | $1,320 |
Faculty salary inversion will be addressed on a case-by-case basis within that specific discipline (program) only. When a new faculty member is hired or a faculty member is promoted to a new rank in that discipline, all the other faculty members in that discipline at that rank will receive raises to match.
Associate professors will remain at their January 2024 salary, which in many cases is below the Associate Professor floor, unless a colleague in their department is promoted to Associate Professor, at which point all Associate Professors in the same department will be given the increase, also in order to avoid salary inversion within departments.
Administration has stated that the goal is to have all faculty salaries increased to their respective floor in January 2025. If that occurs, inversion will be eliminated in AY 2025-26. However, at that time, there will still be significant salary compression in many disciplines because new and current faculty, and faculty within ranks with widely varying years of service, will all be at the same salary floor.
AAUP believes the most pressing issue right now is addressing the egregious salary inversion that will occur in August 2024 between new NTT Assistant Professors, and returning NTT Assistant Professors, many of whom have taught here for several years, but will be making around $10,000 less than the new hires.
Truman’s administration has taken important steps to improve faculty starting and base salary development. In the interest of fair faculty salaries and improved faculty morale, we urge the Truman administration to share a clear plan that addresses salary inversion and compression as soon as possible. Truman faculty have worked hard to support our university’s success in delivering high quality education, as seen in recent university rankings and deserve to be compensated accordingly.