University faculty members across the country are feeling the impact of the recession.

The American Association of University Professionals’ annual report, released Monday, showed an average pay increase of 1.2 percent for nationwide faculty salaries for the 2009-2010 school year over the previous year.

AAUP contrasted this with the 2.7 percent inflation increase from December 2008 to 2009.

This is the smallest increase in the report’s 50-year history. The only time the inflation rates out-paced salary increases was in the late 1970s, when inflation increases were above 20 percent.

Public Master’s institutions, of which Eastern is one, were slightly less hard hit, with an average increase of 1.4 percent. This is 1.3 percent behind the inflation rate given by the association.

AAUP uses the U.S. Bureau of Labor’s Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers to factor the inflation rates. They have used the December-to-December figures every year, John Curtis AAUP director of research said.

Eastern’s faculty members are unionized, and their salary rate increases were not immediately affected by the economic downturn. The University Professionals of Illinois’ contract, executed on Jan. 19, 2007, stipulated a 3.5 percent across the board increase for fiscal year 2010.

The current contract expires on August 31. UPI will begin negotiating its new contract in mid-May. John Allison, chapter president and an English professor, called the national trend disappointing.

The report said that the trend is a result of lowered income for educational institutions.

“Current budgetary woes result less from rising costs than from reductions in revenue from virtually all sources,” the AAUP report said.

Under the budget proposed by Gov. Pat Quinn, Eastern will lose $3.12 million of its $50.6 million appropriation in fiscal year 2011.

The impact this has on Eastern’s faculty salaries will not be known until the university and UPI finish contract negotiations.

Blair Lord, provost and vice president for academic affairs, said the national economy affects salaries in all areas, not just higher education.

“When the economy isn’t growing, salaries tend not to grow as fast,” Lord said. “If I could put a visual description on it, it is very much like boats rising and falling with the tide. When the economy is doing well, boats tend to rise, and they sink with the ebbing tide. I think that’s what we are seeing.”

Sarah Ruholl can be reached at 581-7942 or [email protected].