Inside Higher Ed: 2-Year Salary Freeze at Bowdoin
While many colleges are announcing salary freezes to deal with the economic downturn, Bowdoin College has announced a plan — not yet final — to freeze faculty and most staff salaries for two years. “Our salary structure is important to attract and retain the best and the brightest faculty and staff. That being said, salaries and benefits comprise more than 60 percent of our total operating costs,” said Barry Mills, the president, in a letter to the campus. He noted that one goal of the two-year freeze was to try to avoid layoffs. After the two-year freeze, he said he was “committed to allocating budget resources to gradually restore any ground that may have been lost in the competitiveness of our faculty salaries during the suspension period. However, given what we read in the press about other colleges and universities, it is not likely that we will find ourselves significantly disadvantaged in faculty salaries relative to our peers over this period.” The college is also trying to hold other spending levels, and plans a very slight increase in enrollment.
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