DATE: Tuesday, September 23, 1997           TAG: 9709230237

SECTION: FRONT                   PAGE: A10  EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: BY PHILIP WALZER, STAFF WRITER 

                                            LENGTH:   53 lines

NSU FACULTY HELD TO AVERAGE RAISE OF 3.1 PERCENT

Even if the $110 million plan for faculty raises is approved, Norfolk State University will come out with small potatoes.

Under the plan, NSU professors would get an average annual raise in 1998-2000 of 3.1 percent. Radford University also would get that percentage.

No other school in Virginia would get a raise that low. In contrast, Old Dominion University professors would get a 5.0 percent annual increase and the faculty at the College of William Mary would get a 9.4 percent increase.

The reason NSU fares so poorly lies in its strong showing in its ``peer group.''

The state compares each Virginia college to about two dozen other schools across the country considered similar to the college. In the recently revised peer ranking, NSU's 1996-97 average faculty salary of $47,473 ranks seventh-highest among the 25 universities in its peer group.

That, state officials say, means NSU professors need less of a raise than professors at other Virginia schools, which fall in the bottom half of their rankings.

That, says Marie V. McDemmond, who became NSU's president after the peer groups were established, is wrong.

``When I look at faculty salaries here, they're far below what I'm used to,'' said McDemmond, previously vice president for finance at Florida Atlantic University. ``. . . When you look at a 3 percent pool, that's not a lot of money to distribute. That will not deal with the professors who started very low to begin with.''

NSU's peer group has fewer than five other historically black colleges and universities (HBCUs), the nearest being North Carolina Central University. ``It's important to look at ourselves compared to other HBCUs,'' McDemmond said. ``That's the market we're trying to recruit'' faculty from.

She also complained that other schools in NSU's ranking - such as Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, La., and Southeastern Louisiana University - are ``in small country types of settings. . . . That's a far cry from living in Norfolk, Virginia.''

Peter A. Blake, acting associate director of finance for the State Council of Higher Education, who oversaw the revision of the peer groups this year, said they are based on such factors as size of student body, average SAT score of freshmen, mix of academic programs and amount of research grants.

``The intent of these peer groups is to, as closely as possible, pick institutions like the (Virginia) institution as it exists today,'' he said. ``A 3 percent raise may be sufficient to keep Norfolk State as it is today.''

Blake also said research has shown that cost-of-living differences account for only about 11 percent of salary differences overall. ``I'm not convinced cost of living plays as critical a factor as people on either end say.''

Blake said NSU administrators earlier this year agreed to the schools in its peer group but that he'd be willing to hear objections. However, he said, it's probably too late to change the peer group this year.

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