Recently, The Guilfordian published news stories and opinion columns about faculty and administrator salaries that ignore realities of the College’s budget decision-making process, resource allocation and distinction within its peer group.

In fact, raising employee salaries — especially faculty salaries — is Guilford’s top priority. In early March, the Academic Dean notified 24 faculty receiving promotions of raises effective April 1. Even with a worse-case budget next fiscal year, raises will be provided for employees, with almost two-thirds of the pool committed to faculty. The higher the enrollment, the higher the raise pool will be.

As is commonly known, nearly 80 percent of the College’s operating income is from tuition and fees. In 2011, the College made deep budget cuts due to major losses in state-funded financial aid. None of Guilford’s peers and few of the American Association of University Professors institutions to whom we compare are in North Carolina, so they did not take the same hit.

An often-overlooked factor that affects Guilford’s ability to pay faculty at the same levels as its peers is that peers have a much higher percentage of traditional-aged students than at Guilford, and those students contribute at a higher net-revenue level. This means that peer institutions of comparable size are more able to fund important campus priorities such as faculty salaries.

This is not to suggest that Guilford should eliminate the CCE or Early College student cohorts, or that it might be able to replace them with traditional students contributing higher levels of net revenue. However, it should be recognized that the College is possibly comparing itself inappropriately to peers with respect to our ability to pay faculty salaries.

Neither faculty nor administrators have received general raises the last few years due to our financial constraints, although they did get a one-time, across-the-board bonus. As a result of the catastrophic cut in state-funded financial aid, the College reduced 17 administrative and support staff positions and allocated the work to other administrative and support staff positions. No tenured or tenure-track faculty were affected.

Guilford’s budget decision-making process is transparent and involves many in the campus community. Students and faculty are on budget committees chaired by faculty members.  Every raise pool for faculty and staff has been recommended by consensus by the budget committees, and the President and trustees have never cut a dime.