Data from The Diamondback reveals that the University of Maryland allocated nearly $1 billion to base salaries for its employees in fall 2022. Among the most notable figures was former men’s basketball coach Mark Turgeon, who, despite resigning in December 2021, topped the list with a $1.25 million base salary during that period. University President Darryll Pines followed with the second-highest pay at $840,000, with Athletic Director Damon Evans also featuring prominently.
It’s crucial to understand that this salary data reflects base pay and doesn’t encompass total compensation. Bonuses and non-monetary benefits often significantly augment base salaries, especially for top-earning administrators, coaches, and other high-level university personnel.
Here are four key insights derived from the University of Maryland’s salary data, offering a glimpse into the complexities of employee compensation at this institution, as analyzed by The Diamondback Salary Guide.
Decoding University Salary Data: Complexity and Omissions
University salary data, as highlighted by this Diamondback salary guide investigation, can be intricate and often lacks complete transparency. The University of Maryland’s data groups President Pines and Director Evans with approximately 3,600 exempt, regular employees, a diverse category encompassing administrators, deans, IT specialists, and department coordinators. This substantial group constitutes one-third of the university’s total workforce.
Conversely, coaches like Brenda Frese and Mike Locksley are categorized as non-tenured faculty members, a designation shared with research scientists, librarians, and lecturers. While non-tenured faculty typically operate under renewable contracts, tenured faculty enjoy guaranteed employment until resignation, retirement, or termination.
Image alt text: University of Maryland President Darryll Pines, second highest paid employee, next to Athletic Director Damon Evans, also highly compensated.
Todd Holden, president of the Local 1072 chapter of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, representing over 3,400 university workers, points out that the absence of comprehensive bonus information obscures the full extent of wage disparities. These inequities are not apparent in publicly accessible reports like this Diamondback salary guide analysis.
For instance, Brenda Frese’s renewed contract in April 2022, as reported by The Baltimore Sun, elevates her total annual compensation to $1.7 million, a significant $1.1 million increase over her base salary. Around the same time, Mike Locksley secured a contract extension that made him eligible for up to $1.5 million in performance-based incentives, supplementing his base salary, according to The Washington Post.
Holden emphasizes the stark contrast in compensation: “Darryll Pines makes more money before lunchtime on a Monday than a lot of our housekeepers make in two weeks,” highlighting the wage gap within the university system revealed by the Diamondback salary guide data.
The Growing Ranks of Non-Tenured Faculty
As this Diamondback salary guide reveals, non-tenured faculty members, working on contracts and earning less than their tenured counterparts, comprised a significant 32 percent of the University of Maryland’s employees in 2022.
In stark contrast, tenured faculty members, holding permanent academic positions, accounted for a mere 13 percent of employees. An additional three percent were in tenure-track positions, where faculty become eligible for tenure after a six-year period.
Karin Rosemblatt, a history professor and vice president of the university’s chapter of the American Association of University Professors, notes that these figures mirror nationwide trends in academia, trends that have accelerated in recent years.
“More and more people are having jobs that are more poorly paid and have a lot more instability because they have short-term contracts,” she states. “This also gives administrators extraordinary power because people who are on these short-term contracts are going to be much less likely to speak up about issues that they see.” This precarious employment situation is a key takeaway from the Diamondback salary guide’s examination of faculty composition.
The journalism college at the University of Maryland exemplifies this trend. Out of 95 employees, only 14 held tenure or were on a tenure track. A substantial 40 percent of the journalism college’s faculty were lecturers classified as non-tenured, non-regular, with contracts lasting up to six months and a median salary of approximately $8,500.
Lucy Dalglish, dean of the journalism college, explains that these lecturers are typically working journalists who teach one course annually, providing students with valuable insights and industry connections.
“There are some journalism schools that do teach almost all theory, very little skills, but the journalism schools that are producing really good journalism in conjunction with professional partners, they’re going to have a lot of adjuncts,” Dalglish elaborates. However, the Diamondback salary guide data underscores the implications of this staffing model on faculty job security and compensation.
Image alt text: Maryland Women’s Basketball Coach Brenda Frese, one of the highest paid non-tenured faculty, with significantly higher total compensation than base salary.
Business School Faculty Salaries: Leading the Pack
Across all employee categories, faculty within the business school earned significantly more than their counterparts in other university colleges, sometimes by a considerable margin, as indicated by the Diamondback salary guide data.
The median salary for a tenured faculty position in the business school was just under $268,000, approximately $127,000 higher than the median salary across all university colleges.
For business school faculty on the tenure track, the median salary was $216,515, while non-tenured faculty on continuing contracts had a median salary of $165,313. Both of these figures more than doubled the university-wide median for those positions.
The business school, in a statement, attributed these higher salaries to the lucrative career opportunities available to their faculty outside of academia.
“We have extraordinary professors with global reputations … In order to attract excellent scholars and teachers, the school offers salaries that are competitive with other business schools,” the statement explained. This competitive compensation strategy is reflected in the Diamondback salary guide’s college-specific salary breakdowns.
Contingent Employees: A Small but Significant Workforce Segment
Contingent workers, privately contracted by the university, constituted a small but meaningful three percent of the employee population in fall 2022, as noted in this Diamondback salary guide analysis. According to Holden, they represent a vital segment of the University of Maryland’s workforce.
Contingent workers operate under contracts with the university for up to 12 months at a time. Critically, their rights are not protected by a union, they cannot contribute to retirement or pension plans, and they do not receive the same health benefits as regular employees.
“Our union has been fighting for a while at this point to end contingent and contractual employment on campus because we don’t think that there should be a class of workers who don’t have any security,” Holden asserts. The Diamondback salary guide sheds light on the precarious nature of contingent employment within the university system.
It’s important to note that the data provided to The Diamondback for this salary guide analysis included only contingent II employees, whose contracts span six to 12 months. Contingent I employees, with contracts of six months or less, were not included in this data set.
CORRECTION: A previous version of one of this story’s graphics misstated employees categorized as “exempt regular” are the most represented type of employee across all colleges. Non-tenured continuing contract faculty are the most represented employee type. This story’s graphic has been updated.
Victoria Stavish and Devon Milley contributed data analysis to this report.
