Members of the Drew Chapter of AAUP welcome the appearance of the interim report of the University Compensation Committee.  The action of the University Faculty in 1997 that led to the formation of the Committee had its beginnings in AAUP Chapter discussions of compensation, and we are pleased to see that many of our concerns are reflected in the interim report of the Compensation Committee issued today.  We endorse the idea of establishing a long term salary policy and a mechanism to calculate and monitor such a policy, and of clarifying how much money would need to be spent to achieve our salary goals.  We applaud the collaborative process the Committee has engaged in as it has developed this policy and the tremendous amount of work each Committee member has contributed.  The policy document is a major move forward for Drew and the information gathered by the Committee is very valuable.  The long-term policy recommended by the Committee, that “the middle of the salary range for each position at Drew will meet or exceed the market salary median for the position” goes a long way toward correcting our salary levels.  
 
We remain concerned by several issues raised by or omitted from the document.  Specifically, we are concerned about accepting cost of labor ("geographic salary differential") rather than cost of living as a central part of our long-term policy.  We are also concerned about the ways that salary increases might be linked to merit, and we stress the need for faculty involvement in further discussions about the mechanisms for determining merit and awarding and reporting merit awards.  We are also concerned to see such a brief discussion of part-time and non-tenure track faculty salaries (under "other faculty") and urge the committee to address this issue.  We look forward to the parts of the report relating to the faculty that are still forthcoming, including Theological and Library faculty salaries, benefits, a monitoring process to measure compliance with the salary policy, and steps to address the problems caused by the cost of housing close to Drew.  
 
We share the committee's belief that "Drew should fully fund all aspects of its compensation policy," and urge the administration to achieve the CLA salary targets within two years, with at least half of that adjustment occurring this year.