Beyond the Rhetoric: Trends in the Relative Value of Teaching and Research in Faculty Salaries

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, among all faculty activities research consistently showed publishing and other forms of scholarly productivity as the strongest positive predictors of faculty pay. Classroom teaching was consistently negatively related to pay. Now more than a decade after a host of institutional and state policies enacted to enhance the value of teaching, this paper examines changes in the monetary value of classroom teaching and publishing during the past five years. Results show that spending more time on teaching still means lower pay. Scholarly productivity remains the strongest behavioral predictor of pay although its importance may be stabilizing or slightly decreasing.