Entscheidungsträger-Antwort
Antwort von Rosemary Feal
Rosemary FealModern Language Association
30.01.2014
This petition was sent to MLA Executive Director Rosemary G. Feal. As members of the 2013 Executive Council Compensation Committee that determined Dr. Feal’s current salary, we wish to respond to the petition.
How is the chief executive officer’s salary determined at the MLA? Each year the Compensation Committee of the Executive Council formulates a recommendation about the executive director’s salary to the full council, which then makes its own determination. Both the Compensation Committee and the Executive Council take into account the performance of the executive director and the staff she supervises, comparative data about salaries in similar organizations, and the fiscal health of the MLA. The council believes that the executive director’s current salary is appropriate. It is in the middle range of what the two professional surveys we rely on for information say are comparable salaries—that is, salaries of people in similar positions at similar organizations in major cities. The total compensation listed on the MLA’s 990 form includes benefits that all staff members receive, such as retirement and health benefits. The executive director does not have a research or travel fund, as many professors do. Rather, the association covers her travel expenses when she is doing MLA work, as it does with all MLA staff members.
The MLA is a 501 (c)(3) association with over 28,000 members, a staff of almost one hundred, and an annual budget of around $16,000,000. Over 60% of MLA revenue derives from its publications. Unlike most scholarly organizations, the major revenue source at the MLA is not member dues. In fact, the dues paid by graduate students and faculty members with salaries under $30,000 make up only 1.8% of total revenues.
Annual raises reflect the council’s considered judgment of a number of factors and our duty to the association’s well-being. Since 2008–09, Dr. Feal has received an average raise of 3%, which is in keeping with the merit raise parameters for all MLA staff members. Senior staff members have remarkable and valuable expertise in their respective areas (conventions, book and journal publications, information technology, and so on) that demand comparisons to their peers in those areas, not to salaries of professors. Some senior staff members have devoted decades of their careers to the MLA because they believe in the mission of supporting the humanities and working on behalf of education. Dr. Feal has directed the MLA since 2002; she started her career as an adjunct professor in 1981, and she came to the MLA from a position as department chair and full professor at a public research university.
We realize that there is a discrepancy between what chief executives of not-for-profit organizations earn and the average salary of nontenured faculty members in languages and literatures, but reducing or capping senior staff salaries at the MLA, as the petition requests, would not help adjunct faculty members.
The great majority of those whose names appear on the petition are not MLA members. Many of you are adjunct professors and graduate students, however, and the issue of your working conditions is of grave concern to the MLA. We share the belief that the exploitation of professionals that occurs on campuses every day is deplorable. Indeed, documenting and analyzing these conditions, and advocating for change, have been key efforts that Dr. Feal has led at the MLA (see http://www.mla.org/advocacy_kit). The MLA’s student and adjunct dues and convention registration fees are among the lowest in all scholarly associations. In addition, the association offers convention travel grants to graduate student members and those members in lower income brackets.
Many of you who signed the petition call for reform in academic compensation. While most members of the MLA are professors or graduate students, the association itself is not an academic institution, nor does it employ adjuncts. To find out the compensation of chief executive officers at institutions where you work, see http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/143541/#id=table. You’ll note that the highest paid receive over $3,000,000 in total compensation.
We invite MLA members with questions or comments on MLA administration and finances to contact us directly.
Margaret Ferguson, President (mferguson@mla.org)
Roland Greene, First Vice President (rgreene@mla.org)
Marianne Hirsch, Immediate Past President and Chair of the 2013 Compensation Committee (mhirsch@mla.org)
How is the chief executive officer’s salary determined at the MLA? Each year the Compensation Committee of the Executive Council formulates a recommendation about the executive director’s salary to the full council, which then makes its own determination. Both the Compensation Committee and the Executive Council take into account the performance of the executive director and the staff she supervises, comparative data about salaries in similar organizations, and the fiscal health of the MLA. The council believes that the executive director’s current salary is appropriate. It is in the middle range of what the two professional surveys we rely on for information say are comparable salaries—that is, salaries of people in similar positions at similar organizations in major cities. The total compensation listed on the MLA’s 990 form includes benefits that all staff members receive, such as retirement and health benefits. The executive director does not have a research or travel fund, as many professors do. Rather, the association covers her travel expenses when she is doing MLA work, as it does with all MLA staff members.
The MLA is a 501 (c)(3) association with over 28,000 members, a staff of almost one hundred, and an annual budget of around $16,000,000. Over 60% of MLA revenue derives from its publications. Unlike most scholarly organizations, the major revenue source at the MLA is not member dues. In fact, the dues paid by graduate students and faculty members with salaries under $30,000 make up only 1.8% of total revenues.
Annual raises reflect the council’s considered judgment of a number of factors and our duty to the association’s well-being. Since 2008–09, Dr. Feal has received an average raise of 3%, which is in keeping with the merit raise parameters for all MLA staff members. Senior staff members have remarkable and valuable expertise in their respective areas (conventions, book and journal publications, information technology, and so on) that demand comparisons to their peers in those areas, not to salaries of professors. Some senior staff members have devoted decades of their careers to the MLA because they believe in the mission of supporting the humanities and working on behalf of education. Dr. Feal has directed the MLA since 2002; she started her career as an adjunct professor in 1981, and she came to the MLA from a position as department chair and full professor at a public research university.
We realize that there is a discrepancy between what chief executives of not-for-profit organizations earn and the average salary of nontenured faculty members in languages and literatures, but reducing or capping senior staff salaries at the MLA, as the petition requests, would not help adjunct faculty members.
The great majority of those whose names appear on the petition are not MLA members. Many of you are adjunct professors and graduate students, however, and the issue of your working conditions is of grave concern to the MLA. We share the belief that the exploitation of professionals that occurs on campuses every day is deplorable. Indeed, documenting and analyzing these conditions, and advocating for change, have been key efforts that Dr. Feal has led at the MLA (see http://www.mla.org/advocacy_kit). The MLA’s student and adjunct dues and convention registration fees are among the lowest in all scholarly associations. In addition, the association offers convention travel grants to graduate student members and those members in lower income brackets.
Many of you who signed the petition call for reform in academic compensation. While most members of the MLA are professors or graduate students, the association itself is not an academic institution, nor does it employ adjuncts. To find out the compensation of chief executive officers at institutions where you work, see http://chronicle.com/article/Executive-Compensation-at/143541/#id=table. You’ll note that the highest paid receive over $3,000,000 in total compensation.
We invite MLA members with questions or comments on MLA administration and finances to contact us directly.
Margaret Ferguson, President (mferguson@mla.org)
Roland Greene, First Vice President (rgreene@mla.org)
Marianne Hirsch, Immediate Past President and Chair of the 2013 Compensation Committee (mhirsch@mla.org)
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