The average faculty salary at Iowa State is the second largest among Big 12 Conference universities, but Provost Rollin Richmond said the university should not be complacent.

According to a report from the Board of Regents, State of Iowa docket, a survey by the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) showed that ISU faculty members are receiving an average of $68,500 for the 1999-2000 school year.

That’s up 4.3 percent from last year’s average of $65,700.

“Salaries have been discussed many times, and I think [ISU] President [Martin] Jischke has made salaries a top priority in budgets for several years, and we appreciate that,” said Dean Ulrichson, president of the ISU Faculty Senate.

Richmond was pleased with ISU’s rank in the Big 12, but he was concerned about the university’s placements among other comparison groups.

“Because the aspiration of Iowa State is to become one of the best land-grant universities in the nation, we need to be concerned about our ranking in the group of our peer universities,” he said.

Out of 11 schools in a group considered “peer” universities, ISU ranks ninth. The group includes the University of Illinois at Urbana, the University of Wisconsin, Purdue University, Michigan State University and the University of Arizona.

“We’re pleased that one measure is good, and the other measure is not bad but could be improved,” Ulrichson said.

In addition, Richmond said according to a recent study in which the average faculty salaries of about 100 universities were adjusted according to the cost of living, ISU ranked near the middle.

“I was very surprised by that because, in my experience, the cost of living in Ames is low in comparison to many other college towns,” he said. “I expected we would be ranked higher.”

Richmond said the University of Iowa was ranked in the top half of the field in that study.

According to the AAUP survey, faculty salaries at the U of I average $71,100. That’s fifth among public universities in the Big Ten Conference.

Richmond said if ISU’s rank among peer universities and other groups does not improve, the university will have problems recruiting new faculty and maintaining the faculty already here.

“The faculty members you tend to lose to other schools are usually the best ones, and salary is always a factor in that,” he said.

Ulrichson said salaries tend to change pretty slowly.

“Most universities are making changes that are nearly equal to inflation,” he said. “You don’t change very much with 2 to 4 percent raises.”

In the list of Big 12 universities, the University of Texas ranks first in average faculty salary at $74,900. Kansas State University ranks last at $55,600.