Wisconsin's stagnating state higher-education budget has forced the university to keep faculty salaries far below average. When professors get feelers from elsewhere, they learn that a move can easily mean a 100-percent salary increase--sometimes more. Budget problems have also depleted money for perks that keep faculty members on board--funds for…

Publishing is the sleeping beast that faculty at college like the College of St. Catherine, a 5,000-student women's college in Minnesota's Twin Cities, have tiptoed around for years. Here, as in many institutions devoted to undergraduate teaching, professors could once amble undisturbed along the promotion path equipped only with pedagogical…