TAMPA, Fla. — Faculty at The University of Tampa have expressed a desire for a salary increase above the annual standard salary adjustment to keep up with the rising cost of living in Tampa since the Fall 2023 semester.
An ad hoc committee appointed by the Faculty Senate to investigate faculty salaries found that full-time professors at UTampa are underpaid in order to have a livable wage in the city they teach in.
Increasing faculty salaries to combat inflation has been the main point of emphasis at the December 2024 and January 2025 Faculty Senate meetings, where presentations by the provost and president were given, respectively.
UTampa President Teresa Abi-Nader Dahlberg’s strategic plan must be implemented before these raises can happen. The UTampa administration has maintained its stance that although inflation has impacted salaries in recent years, the faculty is not underpaid in relation to comparative groups of universities.
“At the end of the day, we do have faculty who cannot afford to even rent an apartment on their own here in Tampa, that they’re living in a small apartment with somebody else because they don’t make enough money,” said Faculty Senate president Ryan Cragun.
In the Dec. 6, 2024 Faculty Senate meeting, provost David Stern gave a 15-minute presentation with an additional 10 minutes of questions & answers in front of an audience that was standing-room-only in GHS 104.
The presentation outlined facts and statistics, such as the impact of inflation and American Association of University Professors (AAUP) averages. It was cited that there was a consistent increase in all categories of the AAUP from the 2022 fiscal year to the present and that above average increases were slightly higher compared to other institutions across the nation.
The ad hoc committee and Provost had different interpretations of the data presented, with faculty feeling that Tampa has many outlying factors compared to US News’ South Region, which was one of the comparative sets highlighted. Out of the 133 universities in the region, UTampa ranked sixth.
A continued point of contention between both sides is determining what universities serve as fair comparisons to UTampa in this issue of faculty salaries. The administration based its findings on a report by The Segal Group that was presented at the start of the Fall 2023 semester, which did not account for the cost of living in Tampa and compared UTampa to “a bunch of schools,” said Cragun.
Kevin Fridy, one of five members of the ad hoc committee, cited there are some really small schools included in the Segal study, such as Wheeling Jesuit University, Greensboro College, and Johnson University, which all have enrollments of less than 1000 students. Of the 167 schools included in the study, only 15 have enrollments higher than UTampa.
“If you are buying a house lots of things impact the price: how many square feet, neighborhood, amenities, etc. You don’t just pay the median home price for your neighborhood, you take these things into consideration,” said Fridy. “We think universities are similarly varied. [It’s] best to compare UTampa to likes or control for the factors statistically where your cases are unalike.”
The administration warned against the ad hoc committee creating its own comparisons.
“The ad hoc committee decided to develop a new list of comparison schools, and I made clear that I could not advocate for what they were doing,” said Stern via email. “Dr. Dahlberg was … briefed on the direction they were taking and made clear in answer to a question at the presentation that such a process of choosing one’s comparisons is not best practice in salary studies.”
The ad hoc committee cannot say there is a definitive number that salaries need to be adjusted by and that a single number does not exist. Fridy warns against paying under market value, which brings about challenges in hiring faculty, spreading the existing faculty too thin, and keeping morale from suffering.
The goal of the Faculty Senate is to negotiate with the administration, where Cragun hopes to secure a gradual inflation adjustment that can satisfy the demands of the faculty.
“I think we’re underpaid for a variety of reasons. Part of it is the inflation that happened here in Tampa. Part of it is a variety of other things,” said Cragun. “What that [number] actually needs to be? I don’t know, but right now, it doesn’t seem like there’s a willingness to even consider the possibility of slowly getting us to where we might want to be.”
Another goal the Faculty Senate had and eventually achieved was to have Dahlberg talk about her strategic plan. After Stern’s presentation at the Dec. 6 meeting, Cragun spoke about a meeting with Dahlberg and Stern on Nov. 20, 2024. In that discussion, Dahlberg was cited as not believing the faculty was underpaid and that no raises above the standard salary adjustment would come in the 2025-2026 academic year.
Dahlberg also expressed interest in attending the Jan. 31 meeting, where she gave a 30-minute presentation with no extensions allowed. She answered a set of nine questions but spent most of the time outlining UTampa’s strategies to mitigate the risk of wage compression within the university.
Dahlberg cited the importance of surplus spending, with the current pool at $65 million. 4% of the figure goes to new staff, and $20 million of the surplus has been set aside to combat deferred maintenance during a period called “summer refresh” that occurs annually.
UTampa struggles to raise funds because of its status as 95% tuition-dependent and low endowment, a result of very few alumni being over 50 years old, Dahlberg said in her presentation. Future initiatives include a proposed 3.9% increase in tuition for the next few years, but tuition price cannot be radically changed as the school’s low rates compared to “reputational privates” makes the school attractive in order to attain its student base.
Long-term goals entail increasing the university’s retention rate above 90% and graduation rate above 80%. In addition, Dahlberg wants UTampa to get into the conversation alongside R2 Carnegie schools, something that won’t happen for at least the next three years.
The expected results are that endowment grows as a result of larger national recognition. Elevating UTampa’s designation from a “Regional University- South” to a “National University” would achieve the goal of higher pay for faculty.
Launched initiatives to try and achieve this goal include a capital campaign for endowed scholarships, internships for all students, and AI across the university. The reasoning is to create success stories, as UTampa cannot have student success without faculty success.
Until then, Dahlberg says the university can only hire the faculty it can afford and maintained the stance that UTampa faculty are not underpaid in relation to comparative groups and that faculty salary and tuition price are directly related.
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Photo by Shane Petagna.