It is, frankly, disheartening to read article after article focusing on faculty salaries as the issue at stake here. Of course salaries are important – especially to those of us (and we are the vast majority on this campus) whose salaries are so far below what the DE reports as “average” that it would be laughable if it weren’t so (I am sure unintentionally) misleading. This is my fifth year at SIUC, and I make $10,100 LESS than what the DE reported Thursday as the bottom of the salary range for faculty on this campus. I would be ecstatic to earn $49,258 (Oct. 31) – it might make my 65-hour work weeks a little easier to bear if I knew this administration respected my education and my efforts enough to pay me the market value of an assistant professor at peer institutions.

Are salaries an issue? Yes. But they are only one part of a much broader range of concerns and contract proposals that directly affect our ability as educators to preserve quality education on this campus.

assistant professor of history