Women on the Syracuse University faculty generally earn lesser salaries than men faculty, sometimes as little as 77 cents on the dollar, a long-awaited report on SU faculty salaries revealed.

The report also showed that, on average, SU faculty members are paid less than faculty at most of the university’s peer institutions.

A summary of the report was presented at the semester’s first University Senate meeting, held Wednesday evening in Maxwell Auditorium.

LaVonda Reed, associate provost for faculty affairs and chair of the committee that commissioned the report, said at the Senate meeting that funds have been set aside from Invest Syracuse, the university’s $100 million initiative to fund the Academic Strategic Plan, to address the inequities. SU’s goal is to make any necessary salary adjustments so that they take effect in the next fiscal year, which begins July 1.

“That doesn’t necessarily mean that all salaries will change,” Reed said. “We should have a realistic expectation.”

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On the tenure-track side of SU’s faculty, the committee found gender pay gaps among faculty at the professor and associate professor ranks, with women making about 89 and 94 percent of the salaries that men at those levels earn, respectively. At the assistant professor rank, women professors make slightly less than men.

The gaps are larger among non-tenure-track faculty, where women professors, associate professors and assistant professors make 77, 83 and 83 percent of what men earn, respectively.

The report also includes a regression analysis that found those pay gaps are each statistically and economically significant, even after controlling for other variables such as academic area, years of experience and years of seniority.

Sarah Pralle, an associate professor of political science and member of the Senate Committee on Women’s Concerns, said she wasn’t surprised by the report’s findings.

“This is common in a lot of fields,” she said. “But I’m very reassured that finally people are paying attention to it.”

The report noted that the committee did not have access to all variables that may contribute to salary differences, such as faculty performance.

Moving forward, deans of each of the university’s schools and colleges will work with the Office of the Provost to review and potentially correct salary discrepancies between men and women faculty.

“The report generates many important questions,” said Barbara Kwasnik, a professor in the School of Information Studies and a member of the committee. “It was meant as a starting point for discussion and action and leaves a great deal of the follow-up to the individual schools and colleges.”

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The gender pay gap is bigger in some of SU’s schools and colleges than it is in others. The schools with the largest salary discrepancies include the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs, the David B. Falk College of Sport and Human Dynamics, the School of Education and the Martin J. Whitman School of Management.

“Equitable treatment is a foundational element of an academic community like ours,” said Gene Anderson, the dean of Whitman, in an email. “The report should be a catalyst to address the gaps identified by the analysis and ensure our community is one where everyone feels valued for their contributions.”

Joanna Masingila, dean of the School of Education, said she plans to advocate for raises for her faculty if it’s clear that some are underpaid because they are women. The deans of Falk and Maxwell — Diane Murphy and David Van Slyke — did not return requests for comment.

The College of Arts and Sciences, the largest of SU’s schools and colleges, is the only school or college that the report indicates doesn’t have a gender pay gap. Women professors and women assistant professors in the college make slightly more than men, while women associate professors make slightly less than men.

The levels of equity are unclear across certain ranks in some schools and colleges, such as full professors in the School of Architecture and Whitman, as the report does not include average salaries for groups with fewer than five individuals. In Whitman, for example, there are 11 tenure-track professors that are men but only one woman.

In addition to the gender pay gap, the report also reveals that SU faculty earn less than faculty at the university’s peer institutions. The report compared SU faculty salaries to salaries of faculty at two different groups of peer institutions: members of the Colonial Group, a consortium of 14 private colleges and universities established to exchange data; and 24 members of the Association of American Universities Data Exchange.

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Compared to the Colonial Group institutions, SU professors, associate professors and assistant professors make 84 percent, 91 percent and 85 percent of their peers’ average salaries, respectively. Compared to the AAU institutions, SU professors, associate professors and assistant professors make 78 percent, 88 percent and 82 percent of their peers’ average salaries, respectively.

“Clearly there’s work to be done here in the future,” Ravi Dharwadkar, a professor in the Whitman School and member of the committee, said during Wednesday’s meeting.

SU Chancellor Kent Syverud noted Wednesday that SU has traditionally had lower tuition rates than its peers, adding that tuition revenue is the main funding source for faculty salaries.

“If our tuition has systematically been more than 10 percent below our peers, and has been for decades, which it has been as far as I can understand, it is entirely predictable as a macroeconomic manner what will happen,” he said. “If our goal is to have a competitive faculty and to have competitive faculty salaries, then we have to have competitive revenue sources.”

As part of Invest Syracuse, tuition for incoming first-year and transfer students will include an extra $3,300 premium in addition to annual tuition rate hikes.

Masingila, the School of Education dean, said she feels encouraged, based on her conversations with Vice Chancellor and Provost Michele Wheatly and other university leaders, that the report will spur “positive action” at the university.

“I think the message from the provost and the chancellor is that they’re taking this very seriously and they want to work to address any kind of inequities that are on campus,” Masingila said.

Published on January 17, 2018 at 11:03 pm

Contact Michael: mdburk01@syr.edu