distress about salary offered by Linguistics/U of Colorado

[Lise Menn]

Several colleagues from other schools have expressed anger at the low
salary we advertised for a 1-year instructor position. We are not happy
about it either, and I wish we could do better.   All we have are 5
courses as
replacements which pay $4K each. This was an attempt to give one person a
chance to do all 5, instead of them having to chase around to 3 or
4 different area schools teaching a course or 2 at each of them, which is
the typical life for someone in transition to a tenure-track position,
here or elsewhere.
          The administration has been asked several times to give us a
little more
money for this position, but they have a good response: they are now
implementing an instructor policy that guarantees $4K/course to all of
them (some were getting as little as $2,700), and guarantees the right to
have multi-year contracts and a base salary of $30K/year/fulltime equiv (6
courses) to every non-tenure-track instructor who has been teaching for 3
or more years at
50% time or more, plus annual merit increases.  I am told that this gives
us one of the best policies in the U.S.  But this means that there is no
money left to improve the situation for 1-year temporary hires in the near
term.

Before you send us more angry letters, please check what your own
department's options would be if you had 30% of your faculty on leave
 for next year.  If you could really offer a better option, let me know
and I'll let my dean know.
	Lise Menn