Assessing salary disparity, committee to research gender salary equality among USD faculty

An in-depth study to assess the possible gender pay gap among faculty at the University of South Dakota is set to begin within the coming weeks.

A seven-member faculty committee made up of four women and three men will be appointed by President James Abbott by the end of this week or early next, at which point the committee will begin taking a closer look at the pay differences — if any — between male and female faculty.

COMPARE USD’S FACULTY SALARIES HERE

“I’m very much in favor of equality on this issue, so if we find out that there is inequality on this issue, we’ll do whatever we can to change it,” Abbott said.

Biao Zhang, head of the university’s Institutional Department of Research, will also serve on the committee in order to provide the members with the most current, relevant information pertinent to the study.

The discussion of salary equity at USD was first introduced to the Faculty Senate Dec. 4 by members of the Women’s Alliance Group, who expressed concern that a gender pay gap existed among faculty based on a report released by www.findthedata.org.

Laurie Lind, a professor of health and sciences and member of the Women’s Alliance Group, introduced the report to the Women’s Alliance Group via email, which was eventually forwarded to senators on Faculty Senate.

“You don’t send out an email and think it’s going to go that far, but frankly, I’m very glad that it did,” Lind said. “I’m very happy to know that it was quickly addressed.”

After further discussion in the Faculty Senate, a request was sent to Abbott and his executive committee to appoint a committee to conduct a study.

According to Abbott, 23 faculty either volunteered to serve on the committee or submitted a faculty nomination. For the time being, Abbott said, he will not set a time line for when he would like the committee to report on their findings, and said “it depends upon how much information they feel they need and how much time it takes to do a real analysis.”

Abbot said the committee will have to begin the process by reviewing the website and compare it to the information at USD.

Abbott said there are discrepancies with the report compared to official university statistics. For example, the report states there are 100 faculty employed at USD; but according to the university’s Institutional Department of Research, a total of 443 faculty were employed full-time during the fall 2013 semester.

Also within the report is a listing of average salaries between male and female assistant professors at USD, salary outlays of assistant professors and a gender salary comparison of USD faculty in relation to other academic institutions of similar size.

“The committee is going to need to review if this report is even remotely correct,” Abbott said. “They’ll want to begin by looking at this report, since this is the source of the complaint, and then they’ll want to work with the research staff to provide them with the information they want.”

Abbott said the report is not a good representation of the university’s faculty salaries due to its “simplistic approach” and misrepresented bits of information.

Similarly, Kurt Hackemer, interim provost, said the committee’s study is necessary in order to choose a best course of action.

“We really need to figure out what’s going on first before we start talking about what needs to be fixed,” Hackemer said. “The point of this (study) is to identify if there is a problem.”

Lind said there is a clear problem with salary equity between men and women.

Sophomore Nicole Arbach said she thinks the committee’s plans are important, but does not see to what extent things could change.

“Even though we’ve tried to even out the gender inequality, it’s still not evened out and it’s still male-dominated,” Arbach said.

First-year Trevor Pochop, a pre-med student, said he is in favor of the committee and has hopes for the future as “both men and women should be paid the same amount.”

Referencing to a 2013 report released by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, Lind said the fact that on a national average women make 78 cents to a man’s $1 is argument enough that something needs to be done at the university.

“We have this diversity office, and I work with Voices of Discovery — it’s all very prominent, it’s important and it’s what we say matters to us here at the university, you know, diversity and inclusivity — but we have this issue glaring at us and it’s not even being addressed,” she said.

Lind reiterated gender salary disparity is a nationwide concern, and said the fact that the university is willing to address and fix the in-question pay inequality is commendable.

“This could have been worse if they didn’t do anything about this,” she said. “Women are very well represented on this campus, but few are in leadership positions.”

While Abbott will not be involved in the committee, he said there are four main aspects he envisions the committee assessing during their research process that will make the picture clearer as to if there is a gender pay gap at USD.

Abbott’s considerations include which college each faculty works in, their rank within the department, years of service to the university and their terminal degree.

“You have to compare apples to apples and oranges to oranges,” Abbott said, explaining that it is not accurate to compare faculty within the law school to faculty who teach humanities.

Hackemer said the university bases most faculty pay off of the Oklahoma Salary Survey, which is used to set competitive pay levels.

“There’s a lot of wage differentiation between different schools and departments,” he said. “I think we don’t know for sure if there is disparity, and we should know. If there is some disparity, it will lead to some interesting conversation about what to do next.”

Follow reporter Trent Opstedahl on Twitter @TrentOp