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STC's First Academic , SalarySurvey, 2003Sandi HarnerPublished online: 20 Nov 2009.

To cite this article: Sandi Harner (2004) STC's First Academic , Salary Survey, 2003,Technical Communication Quarterly, 13:1, 45-48, DOI: 10.1207/S15427625TCQ1301_6

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STC’s First AcademicSalary Survey, 2003

Sandi HarnerCedarville University

This article reports United States salary data from the April 2003 survey of Societyfor Technical Communication members who identify themselves as educators. Itprovides analysis of salary data based on type of institution, rank, tenure status, expe-rience, education level, sex, and age. It also reports on benefits, administrative re-sponsibilities, job satisfaction, and program size.

In April 2003, the Society for Technical Communication (STC) launched its firstsalary survey for full-time faculty members teaching in technical communicationprograms at two- and four-year colleges and universities in the United States.Members from universities with graduate programs are incorporated into thefour-year group. Adjunct faculty members were not surveyed. This survey looks atcompensation as well as at other information specific to this group of educators.

STC sent this survey to a total of 2,163 members, all of the STC members whoidentified themselves as educators. Industry trainers may identify themselves aseducators, but their responses were omitted from the results reported here. Of themembers who received the survey, 269 responded (12.4%). Of those responses,163 (7.5% of the total) contained sufficient information to be included in the sur-vey. This response rate is better than the percentage sounds because so many indus-try trainers were included in the original mailing. By comparison to this samplesize of 163, the 2003 survey of ATTW members generated a sample size of 228.(See the article by Dayton and Bernhardt in this issue.) Members received their sal-ary survey forms by mail and returned them on paper copy.

Results of this survey are presented in Table 1, modeled after the STC annualsalary survey of all members (see www.stc.org).

In addition to salary, full-time academics in technical communication receivethe benefits shown in Table 2.

In addition to seeking information on salary and benefits, the STC survey queriedrespondents about administrative responsibilities, job satisfaction, and program

TECHNICAL COMMUNICATION QUARTERLY, 13(1), 45–48

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46

TABLE 12003 Academic Salary Survey: Annual Wages—U.S. (U.S. dollars per year)

Grouping Base Mean 10% 25% 50% 75% 90%

All Respondents 163 $55,015 $36,000 $43,300 $51,000 63,000 80,000Type of Institution

4–year 143 55,020 36,000 43,000 50,000 64,150 80,0002–year 20 55,000 — 45,000 52,000 60,000 —

Academic RankProfessor 47 71,360 — 58,500 69,800 80,000 —

Associate professor 35 58,840 — 51,000 55,320 64,450 —Assistant professor 51 44,220 37,900 40,000 45,400 47,280 50,000Instructor 26 42,610 — 30,000 40,000 52,000 —

TenureTenured 76 64,780 49,000 53,020 60,000 70,000 90,000Nontenured 83 45,620 32,000 38,000 44,100 48,400 61,700

Years of TeachingFewer than 6 years 33 46,170 — 40,000 45,000 50,000 —6–10 years 33 45,500 — 40,000 45,000 50,000 —11–20 years 49 54,700 — 45,000 51,900 52,500 —21–40 years 48 68,000 — 55,700 65,000 78,000 —41 years or more — — — — — — —

Years in IndustryFewer than 6 years 96 55,950 36,500 44,000 52,500 66,000 80,0006–10 years 32 54,320 — 43,500 50,000 57,000 —11–20 years 27 52,140 — 41,500 51,090 60,360 —21–40 years 8 56,430 — — — — —41 years or more — — — — — — —

Education LevelMaster’s degree 40 47,530 36,000 46,000 60,000 —Doctorate 122 57,520 40,000 45,000 54,000 67,000 80,000

SexMale 73 61,120 43,000 47,280 56,400 71,000 90,000Female 90 50,070 34,900 40,000 47,000 60,000 68,000

Age20–29 5 35,000 — — — — —30–39 36 46,760 — 43,250 47,000 50,000 —40–49 29 48,360 — 39,000 47,000 55,000 —50 years and over 92 61,600 40,000 47,300 59,950 71,000 90,000

Note. Copyright 2003 by the Society for Technical Communication (STC). Reprinted with per-mission of STC.

Base = The total responses in a given category. Mean = The value computed by averaging the tabu-lated responses. 10% = Ten percent of the responses were below this value; 90% were above this value.25% = Twenty-five percent of the responses were below this value; 75% were above this value. 50% =Fifty percent of the responses were below this value; 50% were above this value. (This point is alsocalled the median.) 75% = Seventy-five percent of the responses were below this value; 25% wereabove this value. 90% = Ninety percent of the responses were below this value; 10% were above thisvalue.

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size. Perhaps administrators are disproportionately represented in this sample be-cause 76% have administrative responsibilities, but 94% reported no extra compen-sation for their administrative roles. This sample probably represents a dispropor-tionate number of advanced professors among academics as a whole because morethanhalfareoveragefifty,and60%havebeenteachingforelevenyearsormore.

Respondents serve in the following roles:

Dean 4%Department chair 16%Director of TC 56%Advisor of STC student chapter 24%

At least on the basis of this relatively small sample, academics in technicalcommunication are generally satisfied with their jobs, with only 8% reporting dis-satisfaction. They reported these results in response to the prompt “What is yourlevel of satisfaction with your present position?”

Very satisfied 40%Satisfied 52%Dissatisfied 6%Very dissatisfied 2%

These figures are confirmed by their reasons for choosing this profession. Re-spondents could choose more than one reason, but 55% chose “Enjoy type ofwork” as their primary reason.

Earn good income 15%Earn respect of others 23%Enjoy type of work 91%Enjoy working conditions 70%Fell into it 22%Make contributions 60%Use my talents 54%Other 15%

ACADEMIC SALARY SURVEY 47

TABLE 2Employee Benefits

Dental insurance 75% Professional society dues 21%Disability insurance 7% Retirement/pension 90%Health insurance 94% Seminar/conference reimbursements 76%Internet access 78% Tuition reimbursement 43%Life insurance 72% Other 3%

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Technical communication programs remain small. The size of the program mayimpact salary negotiating power. Survey respondents reported the number offull-time faculty teaching in their technical communication program:

1 11%2–3 30%4–5 28%More than 5 31%

STC has proved valuable through this first effort at a survey of academic sala-ries. We learned many things as we created the survey instrument and looked at theresulting data. We were not able to draw conclusions in some areas that are of inter-est to all academics. Perhaps next year’s survey—or other new research endeav-ors—could begin to collect important data on the following issues:

• Faculty teaching loads• Salary compression• Male and female salaries of those who are not deans or department chairs• Comparison of salaries based on program academic location (English, tech-

nical communication, engineering), geographic location (urban, rural), universitytype (community college, liberal arts college, state university, private university),and program type (dedicated degree programs, service courses)

Overall, we have discovered some important information that should benefit allacademics. We need to remember, however, that this is not scientific research. Thisdata reflects information given on the salary survey of STC members who identifythemselves as academics. We have no way to verify the information but we rely onthe honesty of those who return their surveys. The results are also based on a lim-ited sample of academics and should be validated in a follow-up survey. I thankSTC for sponsoring this survey.

Sandi Harner is a professor at Cedarville University. She designed and is currently Di-rector of the Technical and Professional Communication Program. She co-authored abook entitled Technical Marketing Communication, which was published by Allyn &Bacon/Longman in 2002. She currently serves on the STC Board of Directors in her fifthyear as Assistant to the President for Academic and Research Programs.

48 HARNER

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