Fair salary for covering a course during a maternity leave

Question

I teach an introductory economics course at a public policy school. I will be going on maternity leave 6 weeks into the semester, and the Department needs to hire someone to teach the last 12 weeks of the course. What would be fair (market rate) compensation for this? The course will be entirely online due to covid-19, and I would provide my teaching materials.

Answer 1

Two answers based off two starting assumptions:

(1) Assumption: the minimum quality of teaching at your institution has remained unchanged during this pandemic and moving everything online.
Answer: Take the salary/wage that your institution pays non-tenure track individuals to teach an intro econ (or similar intro course); this may be a lecturers, visiting, or PhD students. If the numbers vary a bit, take the average. Then prorate their semester pay by 12/(6+12)=2/3.


(2) Assumption: online teaching should have a different compensation (e.g., b/c it gives the instructor flexibility to live wherever they want or b/c it is easier/harder).
Answer: take a sample of salaries of econ instructor as online institutions (prior to 2020). Then prorate their semester pay by 12/(6+12)=2/3.


IF I estimate #1 from the subjective info from my previous institution, it would be about  $8,500*2/3 = $5,700
IF I estimate #2 from some random googling, it would be about $4,400

Thus depending on your institution, that should give you an upper and lower bound :)

Comments

The American Association of University Professors (AAUP) collects data on average course salary for contingent faculty who are paid on a per course basis.  They also break out the data into payment by institutional type.  However, they do not break out the data by discipline.    Although your post is old, I am posting this information for anyone who might be looking for similar information.   For the 2021-22 AAUP Faculty Compensation Survey Report go to https://www.aaup.org/file/AAUP_ARES_2021%E2%80%932022.pdf       For data on salaries for part-time faculty paid on a per-course basis check out Survey Table 15.