Mississippi Today

Mississippi’s university faculty are woefully underpaid. Is that ‘economic reality’?

Published

9 months ago

February 16, 2024

Mississippi’s university faculty are woefully underpaid. Is that ‘economic reality’?

Higher education officials — from the presidents of each public university to the commissioner of their central governing board — all agree: Mississippi’s faculty and staff are woefully underpaid.

“If there’s ever a group in the United State of America that deserves our applause, deserves our thanks and appreciation,” it is the faculty, University of Mississippi Chancellor Glenn Boyce said during an impassioned speech at the Institutions of Higher Learning Board of Trustees meeting Thursday.

“The essence of our education is the faculty,” said Tom Duff, the billionaire owner of Southern Tire Mart who chairs IHL’s finance committee. “So they need to be fairly compensated.”

Pay raises have “been an ongoing priority for the board,” Commissioner Alfred Rankins told Mississippi Today.

But despite several years of state-funded pay raises, Mississippi’s faculty and staff continue to make far less than those in other Southern states. An analysis of federal data shows just three institutions — University of Mississippi, Mississippi State University and University of Southern Mississippi — pay their faculty above the average salary in neighboring states of $73,163.

Faculty also make far less than they used to. Since 2016, the average faculty member in Mississippi has actually seen a nearly $11,000 pay cut due to inflation, according to an analysis of federal data. In fall 2022, the average faculty salary in Mississippi was $68,676.

Why is that?

Some reasons that IHL has offered at the Capitol and during its board meeting include: General inflationary pressures on the universities, a rise in health insurance premiums and financial problems plaguing retirement for public employees.

Though it has long been IHL’s goal to bring faculty salaries up to the Southern Regional Education Board average, that has been somewhat out of reach as Rankins told the Senate Appropriations Committee on Wednesday that other states are raising pay faster than Mississippi. And, coupled with a falling number of high school graduates that means less tuition, Rankins said the universities are staring down a functional budget cut this year if lawmakers provide IHL with level funding.

Still, the agency does not want to ask for more money than lawmakers will appropriate, and it would be “a large number” to raise faculty salaries to the SREB average in one year, Rankins told the committee.

IHL is asking lawmakers to appropriate $53 million for salaries, enough for a 6.4% incremental raise for faculty, according to IHL’s 2025 legislative funding priorities.

“Our board structures their request based on revenue collection and what we reasonably think the Legislature will appropriate to our universities given their other priorities,” Rankins said.

To many faculty at the University of Southern Mississippi, where more than 100 people attended a rally for fair pay Thursday, those other priorities may be the cause of the wage stagnation. A flier distributed at the rally said USM pays faculty $10,000 less than peer institutions.

In one example, Ole Miss has its eyes this year on a $165 million residence hall, and a $49 million parking garage. Jackson State University and Mississippi Valley State University are also requesting funding for residence halls.

“The bottom line is that public higher education in Mississippi and everywhere needs robust and sustainable public funding that prioritizes the core academic mission,” Irene Mulvey, the president of the American Association of University Professors, said at the USM rally to cheers of “hear, hear.”

Irene Mulvey, president of the American Association of University Professors, gives a speech during a pay equity protest at the University of Southern Mississippi’s campus in Hattiesburg, Miss., Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

“That means compensation for the faculty,” she added. “The people, without whom, you would not have a university.”

At the IHL meeting, Rankins, Boyce and Duff all said that investing in dormitories and athletic facilities supports pay raises for faculty, not just because the universities rely on tuition.

“There’s no contradiction because you’re talking about a separate pool of money,” Rankins said. “Salaries come from the general E-and-G appropriations. Capital funds are typically bonded. It’s different funding.”

Boyce said Ole Miss, where the enrollment cliff is not an issue, needs to fund updated facilities to accommodate its growing enrollment because tuition now makes up about 75% of the university budget.

It’s IHL’s purview, Boyce added, to come up with a legislative request for faculty raises. Unlike with capital projects, Ole Miss does not enter the session with a specific dollar amount for faculty raises that it will ask lawmakers to fund. The university sets the actual percentage raise that faculty receive after the session.

“We use almost every penny of what they give us for faculty and staff raises, and that’s why it’s so important to us to gain their support,” Boyce said of lawmakers. “That’s not to say we wouldn’t obviously reach into tuition dollars. It all flows together and works together. It is not a case of one versus another. It’s a case of what the demand is.”

University of Southern Mississippi faculty, staff, and supporters attend a pay equity protest at the university’s campus in Hattiesburg, Miss., Thursday, Feb. 15, 2024. Credit: Eric J. Shelton/Mississippi Today

In an emailed statement after the IHL meeting, Boyce said Ole Miss has raised nominal employee salaries 11% over the past three years and hopes to provide another raise this summer to “attrain and retain high-quality employees.”

“We have been fortunate to experience several years of growth as an institution, in part because we are focused on continuing to improve the student experience and quality of life for our employees,” he said. “We also have to grow enrollment to ensure academic quality and offer new programs, which requires us to build facilities to house and educate more students.”

Duff said IHL’s request is made in collaboration with the university presidents like Boyce. In years past, IHL has told the university presidents they need to give faculty a larger raise, though Duff didn’t specify which year that happened.

“It is our constant endeavor to make sure they’re paid appropriately,” Duff said of faculty. “To think that we don’t see those salaries is incorrect.”

Though Duff said that he can’t say the money the state of Mississippi is spending on athletic buildings could not be better spent on faculty salaries, it is a fact that students want better facilities.

“It’s a great question,” Duff said. “But fortunately or unfortunately, schools cater to the demands of the students and to the demands of the economic reality we’re in.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

On this day in 1875

Published

4 hours ago

November 2, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Jerry Mitchell – 2024-11-02 07:00:00

Nov. 2, 1875

Pictured here are U.S. Sen. Hiram Revels of Mississippi, left, with six Black members of the U.S. House, Ben J.S. Turner of Alabama, Josiah T. Walls of Florida, Jefferson H. Long of Georgia, and Robert C. De Large, Joseph H. Rainy and R. Brown Elliot, all of South Carolina. Credit: Library of Congress

The first Mississippi Plan, which included violence against Black Americans to keep them from voting, resulted in huge victories for white Democrats across the state.

A year earlier, the Republican Party had carried a majority of the votes, and many Black Mississippians had been elected to office. In the wake of those victories, white leagues arose to challenge Republican rule and began to use widespread violence and fraud to recapture control of the state.

Over several days in September 1875, about 50 Black Mississippians were killed along with white supporters, including a school teacher who worked with the Black community in Clinton.

The governor asked President Ulysses Grant to intervene, but he decided against intervening, and the violence and fraud continued. Other Southern states soon copied the Mississippi plan.

John R. Lynch, the last Black congressman for Mississippi until the 1986 election of Mike Espy, wrote: “It was a well-known fact that in 1875 nearly every Democratic club in the State was converted into an armed military company.”

A federal grand jury concluded: “Fraud, intimidation, and violence perpetrated at the last election is without a parallel in the annals of history.”

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Mississippi Today’s NewsMatch Campaign is Here: Support Journalism that Strengthens Mississippi

Published

15 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Mary Margaret White – 2024-11-01 12:34:00

High-quality journalism like ours depends on reader support; without it, we simply couldn’t exist. That’s why we’re proud to join the NewsMatch movement, a national initiative aimed at raising $50 million for nonprofit newsrooms that serve communities like ours here in Mississippi, where access to reliable information has often been limited.

In a time when trusted journalists and media sources are disappearing, we believe the stakes couldn’t be higher. Without on-the-ground, trustworthy reporting, civic engagement suffers, accountability falters and corruption often goes unaddressed. But it doesn’t have to be this way.

Here at Mississippi Today we act as watchdogs, holding those in power accountable, and as storytellers, giving a platform to voices that have been ignored for too long. And we’re committed to keeping our stories free for everyone because information should be accessible when it’s needed most.

JOIN THE MOVEMENT

Why NewsMatch and Why Now?

This year’s NewsMatch campaign runs from November 1 through December 31, giving us a special opportunity to make each dollar you give go even further. Through matching funds provided by local foundations like the Maddox Foundation, and national funders like the MacArthur Foundation, the Rural Partner Fund and the Hewlett Foundation, your gift will be matched dollar for dollar up to $1,000. Plus, if 100 new donors join us, we’ll unlock an additional $2,000 in funding, bringing us even closer to our goal. Boiled down: your donation goes four times as far.

Every dollar raised strengthens our ability to serve you with fact-based journalism on issues that impact your everyday life—whether it’s covering local election issues or reporting on decisions affecting schools, safety and economic growth in Mississippi. Your support makes it possible for us to stay rooted in the community, offering nuanced perspectives that help Mississippians understand and engage with what’s happening around them.

Special Event: “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact”

As part of the campaign, we’re excited to host a special virtual event, “Freedom of the Press: Southern Challenges, National Impact.” Join Deep South Today newsrooms Mississippi Today and Verite News, along with national experts on press freedom, for an in-depth discussion on the unique challenges facing journalists in the Deep South. This one-hour session will explore the critical role local newsrooms play in holding power accountable, highlighting recent restrictions on press freedom such as Louisiana’s “25-foot law,” which affects journalists’ ability to report vital news.

We’ll examine what’s at stake if local newsrooms lose press freedoms and will discuss how you, as members of the public, can help protect it. This event is open to Mississippi Today and Verite News members as a special thank-you for supporting local journalism and standing with us in this mission. Donate today to RSVP!

How You Can Help

Make Your Gift Today

Together, let’s ensure Mississippi has the robust, independent journalism it needs to thrive. Your support fuels our ability to expose the truth, elevate marginalized stories and build a more informed Mississippi.

Thank you for believing in the power of journalism to strengthen the communities we love—not only during election season but year-round. With your help, we’ll keep Mississippi informed, engaged and connected for generations to come.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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Mississippi Today

Hinds County loses fight over control of jail

Published

22 hours ago

November 1, 2024

Staff Editor

mississippitoday.org – Mina Corpuz – 2024-11-01 12:57:00

The Hinds County sheriff and Board of Supervisors have lost an appeal to prevent control of its jail by a court-appointed receiver and an injunction that orders the county to address unconstitutional conditions in the facility.

Two members from a three-judge panel of the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with decisions by U.S. District Judge Carlton Reeves to appoint a receiver to oversee day-to-day jail operations and keep parts of a previous consent decree in place to fix constitutional violations, including a failure to protect detainees from harm.

However, the appeals court called the new injunction “overly broad” in one area and is asking Reeves to reevaluate the scope of the receivership.

The injunction retained provisions relating to sexual assault, but the appeals court found the provisions were tied to general risk of violence at the jail, rather than specific concerns about the Prison Rape Elimination Act. The court reversed those points of the injunction and remanded them to the district court so the provisions can be removed.

The court also found that the receiver should not have authority over budgeting and staff salaries for the Raymond Detention Center, which could be seen as “federal intrusion into RDC’s budget” – especially if the receivership has no end date.

Hinds County Board of Supervisors President Robert Graham was not immediately available for comment Friday. Sheriff Tyree Jones declined to comment because he has not yet read the entire court opinion.

In 2016, the Department of Justice sued Hinds County alleging a pattern or practice of unconstitutional conditions in four of its detention facilities. The county and DOJ entered a consent decree with stipulated changes to make for the jail system, which holds people facing trial.

“But the decree did not resolve the dispute; to the contrary, a yearslong battle ensued in the district court as to whether and to what extent the County was complying with the consent decree,” the appeals court wrote.

This prompted Reeves to hold the county in contempt of court twice in 2022.

The county argued it was doing its best to comply with the consent decree and spending millions to fix the jail. One of the solutions they offered was building a new jail, which is now under construction in Jackson.

The county had a chance to further prove itself during three weeks of hearings held in February 2022. Focuses included the death of seven detainees in 2021 from assaults and suicide and issues with staffing, contraband, old infrastructure and use of force.

Seeing partial compliance by the county, in April 2022 Reeves dismissed the consent decree and issued a new, shorter injunction focused on the jail and removed some provisions from the decree.

But Reeves didn’t see improvement from there. In July 2022, he ordered receivership and wrote that it was needed because of an ongoing risk of unconstitutional harm to jail detainees and staff.

The county pushed back against federal oversight and filed an appeal, arguing that there isn’t sufficient evidence to show that there are current and ongoing constitutional violations at the jail and that the county has acted with deliberate indifference.

Days before the appointed receiver was set to take control of the jail at the beginning of 2023, the 5th Circuit Court ordered a stay to halt that receiver’s work. The new injunction ordered by Reeves was also stayed, and a three-person jail monitoring team that had been in place for years also was ordered to stop work.

This article first appeared on Mississippi Today and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.

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