Manhattan School of Music's Precollege program is among the most prestigious preparatory training programs for young musicians in the world, but its faculty is currently egregiously underpaid. A fundamental strength of this program lies in its ability to retain faculty of the highest quality, but this basic underpinning is threatened by the administration's refusal to compensate faculty members fairly.  

MSM ADMINISTRATION MUST SHOW RESPECT FOR ITS FACULTY IN A NEW CONTRACT NOW!

MSM faculty are the lifeblood of the Precollege program – not only are they the foundation of its reputation, but they also assume much of the responsibility for recruitment of talented students. In many cases, faculty take a pay cut by encouraging their private students to audition for MSM, setting their own financial interests aside for the sake of facilitating a more comprehensive education for their students.

INSTEAD OF SQUEEZING FACULTY, A NEW CONTRACT MUST DEVOTE ADEQUATE RESOURCES TO FACILITATE STUDENT SUCCESS!

MSM Precollege pays most of its faculty barely *HALF* the rate of peer institutions. While the School has significantly increased tuition rates over the last few years, Precollege faculty pay has fallen behind cost-of-living.  Not only has the administration not offered any measures to bring the contract in line with industry standards, but they have also proposed punitive new scheduling procedures antithetical to retaining a faculty of accomplished artist-performers, while also demanding increases in class sizes and other new administrative policies not in the best interest of students.

MSM NEEDS TO REASSESS ITS PRIORITIES!

It’s clear that the administration’s priorities are out of order and that the alarming lack of investment in faculty compensation and student resources is not sustainable. While the MSM administration is currently refusing to offer any meaningful compensation increases to faculty:

• The overwhelming majority of MSM Precollege faculty currently make 43% less than their colleagues at Mannes Prep and 59% less than their colleagues at Juilliard’s MAP program. 
• Only around 20% of MSM Precollege tuition money currently goes to faculty compensation. We all know that retaining world-class faculty lies at the heart of this program’s ongoing success, so why is the administration unwilling to invest in retaining top-tier faculty?
• According to MSM’s publicly available tax filings, the school is not in a position of financial difficulty and a meaningful increase in faculty compensation is entirely feasible. It’s clear that the administration's refusal to offer faculty a reasonable contract with compensation that meets industry standards and administrative policies that benefit students is not a result of financial difficulty; it’s a stubborn refusal to invest adequately in the bedrock foundation of the program.

MSM ADMINISTRATION – RESPECT YOUR FACULTY BY AGREEING TO A CONTRACT THAT MEETS BASIC INDUSTRY STANDARDS OF PEER INSTITUTIONS!  YOU CANNOT SERVE YOUR STUDENTS IF YOU DISRESPECT THEIR TEACHERS! FOR THE GOOD OF CURRENT STUDENTS AND THE LONG-TERM HEALTH OF THE INSTITUTION, AGREE TO A DECENT CONTRACT *NOW* !

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