A CWU Lexicon of Faculty Salary Issues 1. There is a possible inversion issue in the history department at X State U because 3 associate professors in the department earn less than the two highest paid assistant professors in the department. Parity refers to salary differentials between faculty at one institution and faculty at their peer institutions.
Merit refers to salary differentials between faculty due to performance based measures.
Scale adjustment refers to salary differentials associated with an overall shift of the entire salary scale, thus affecting the pay of every faculty member on the salary scale. A scale adjustment is often associated with addressing inflation. Scale progression refers to salary differentials associated with years of service. In practice, due to the subjective nature of many aspects of these issues and because two or more of these issues may and probably will be entangled, it may be difficult or impossible to unequivocally identify the nature of salary differentials for a particular individual or group. The lexicon is intended ONLY to insure that voices in the discussion of salary issues use the same words to express the same ideas.