New EWU contract eases pay inequities

When students come back to school at Eastern Washington University later this month, they may be taught by a very happy professor who just got a big raise.

The regional university isn’t celebrating a financial windfall. The new money comes from a creative new faculty contract that focuses on bringing everyone up to the national salary averages in their fields instead of giving across-the-board raises.

That means a few EWU professors will get raises as big as $18,000 a year over the next three years and seven, who are paid well above market rates, will get nothing.