The University's three-year catch-up plan for increases in faculty salaries led to a record faculty recruitment year, as Brandeis lost only two prospective professors to other schools, Dean of Arts and Sciences Adam Jaffe said.In the previous three years, there were between four and seven professors who rejected job offers from Brandeis for faculty positions elsewhere, Jaffe said.

"With the offers that we were making, we were able to get almost everybody who we wanted," Jaffe said.

Seven professors left Brandeis after the 2003 to 2004 academic year, and eight left after '05 to '06, not including retirements or faculty members who weren't reappointed, Jaffe said.

"In some sense [losing a few faculty members] is a sign that we're [in] a good place, that other places want to hire our faculty," he said.

The Board of Trustees approved the catch-up plan in 2004 to bring faculty salaries more in line with median compensation in the Association of American Universities' 60 member institutions by the fiscal year of 2007.

The plan included a series of three raises. The average salary for Brandeis professors was $99,000 for the 2004 to 2005 academic year, $106,000 for '05 to '06 and $111,000 for '06 to '07, according to information provided by Jaffe.

The AAU won't release data on faculty salaries for this academic year until the end of the summer, Jaffe said.

For the current fiscal year, Jaffe said that the Board of Trustees had approved a salary increase of 4.2 percent, in addition to extra funds, as part of the catch-up plan.

"Based on the data that we do have [from last year], it would appear that overall, we have approximately met that goal of the median of the arts and sciences AAU schools," Jaffe said.

While Brandeis still lags behind the AAU median with regard to the salary of full professors, the University has become more competitive in its compensation of assistant professors, Jaffe said. Brandeis paid its assistant professors an average of $67,000 in 2006 to 2007, compared with an AAU median of $66,000. The University's $111,000 average for full professors, however is still slightly below the AAU median of $112, 000. In 2004, the AAU median was $104, 000 compared to the University's $99,000.

Unlike full professors, assistant professors aren't reviewed by administrators and department heads for tenure purposes.

Jaffe said that the economic downturn after the Sept. 11 terror attacks first prompted concerns about the size of faculty salaries.

Jaffe said that there are no new plans to address this issue, but that the University will continue to monitor the situation. He added that the goal for the next faculty salary budget is to "not lose the ground that we've made."

The University considers the inflation rate and, when available, the rate of salary increases at other universities when determining faculty salaries each year, Jaffe explained.

He added that newly hired faculty members also report financial offers they receive from other schools.

Jaffe pointed out that faculty salaries are a factor U.S. News and World Report considers in its annual college rankings. Brandeis ranked 31st among national universities for the second straight year in 2007 after finishing 32nd in 2003 and 2004, and 34th in 2005.

"In the past couple of years, [salary] has been a positive contributor to Brandeis' ranking," he said. "Last year we moved up, ... and part of it was in fact the increase in faculty salaries."

The feedback from faculty on the plan has been positive, Jaffe said. "[Professors] like getting paid more," he said. "I think it's been very positive in terms of faculty morale."

Prof. Seth Fraden (PHYS), who has been at Brandeis as a graduate student and a faculty member for 25 years, said he was pleased with the catch-up plan.

"Salary was never my primary motivation for staying at Brandeis, but nevertheless I appreciate the increase," he said. "They made good on their pledge."

Assistant Professor Janet McIntosh (ANTH), who came to Brandeis in 2001, said faculty salaries aren't as contentious an issue as they were when she started working at the University.

"I knew when I came in that there were rumblings about faculty salaries," she said. "That seems to be on a better path now.