The board that oversees Pennsylvania's state-owned universities has given the green light to new contracts for thousands of faculty members and hundreds of sports coaches.  
 
The State System of Higher Education board of governors ratified the new deal late Wednesday.
 
The four-year contracts are retroactive to July 2011. They provide annual pay increases of between 3.5 and 7-percent for the 5,500 faculty members over the last three years of the contract. The 600 coaches will get raises totaling 4.75-percent plus potential increases of 6-percent through performance-based merit pools in the last two years of their contract.
 
Both groups are represented by the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties. The union members previously ratified the contracts. The state system comprises 14 universities that enroll about 115,000 students.