This is the twenty-second in an annual series of research reports conducted for the Council for Christian Colleges & Universities (CCCU). This year, Richard Sherry of Bethel University has collected the information, using materials, templates, and the format developed by Donald Lerew of Messiah College. The purpose of this study is to provide member colleges with comparative and longitudinal salary data.
The research has traditionally been based on information compiled for the AAUP, appearing in Academe each spring (for the current study, from March/April, 2006). Thirty-eight CCCU institutions are not represented in the AAUP survey this year. Thus, the author surveyed all non-reporting institutions in order to assure a better response. Responses were obtained from 85 of 102 institutions, including 21 of 38 non-AAUP reporting institutions, with the data appearing in the Appendix. Following the methodology used last year, and in a departure from previous reports developed by Mr. Lerew, this report includes data reported by schools neither submitting information to Academe nor to the CCCU request. This information uses data reported to the federal governments Integrated Postsecondary Educational Data System (IPEDS). As a result, the total number of campuses with data included in the survey is 102.
Membership in the CCCU changes over time. In past years, Cumberland College, Bethel College (KS), and Grand Canyon University were included in this survey. Data from Missouri Baptist is now included (joining the CCCU in early 2005).
Readers should keep in mind that the data collected by the author are self-reported from the schools in the non-reporting group. Each of these institutions was given the definitions from the AAUP survey to help attain similarity and comparability. Second, data collected through the IPEDS system follows definitions in use from the federal government. Academe requests salary information based on a 9-month contract, and where this report uses IPEDS data, it is in the form of equated 9-month salaries calculated by IPEDS, prorating the salary average appropriately. This should give comparable results. Evangel University, Corban College, King College, Hope International University, Simpson University, and Bethel College (IN) either provided Academe or the author with salary data, but IPEDS reports that all their faculty are apparently on 12-month contracts, for 9-month teaching responsibilities. The information provided by the schools has thus been used, rather than the lower equated IPEDS figures, but this practice can make comparisons difficult. Further, some institutions are increasingly balanced between 9-10 month and 11-12 month contracts, such as Azusa Pacific, complicating reporting from the schools. Finally, although all institutions report to IPEDS, the averages reported to Academe or to the author occasionally vary by several hundred or even a thousand dollars from IPEDS reports.