The University Senate debated how to address gender pay equity among Syracuse University faculty at its first meeting of the spring 2019 semester on Wednesday.

Diane Grimes and Laurel Morton of the Senate’s Women’s Concerns Committee presented a proposal to create a committee that would determine how SU should address the salary appeal process and its transparency, as well as ways to prevent future inequity. The proposal came more than a year after the university released a report showing women faculty made less on average than men faculty.

The proposal recommended that the Office of Academic Affairs work with the Women’s Concerns Committee throughout the semester to establish “the charge and membership for a faculty administration standing oversight advisory committee.”

Senators expressed confusion about the intent of the proposal and debated whether the committee should be created by the Women’s Concerns Committee, a permanent Senate committee or one led by university administration.

Talia Trackim | Digital Presentation Director

Grimes said she imagined the new committee would be “faculty-heavy,” combining members from Senate committees with university administrators. A standing committee, though, within the Senate cannot include non-senators, Bylaws Committee Chair Bruce Carter said.

Senator Emily Stokes-Rees, associate professor of museum studies, expressed concern over delegating the responsibility of pay equity solely to the Women’s Concerns Committee and “placing the burden” of correcting salary disparities on women.

“Gender equity affects all of us,” she said, adding that the issue deserves a separate committee.

The committee proposal was part of the Women’s Concerns Committee’s January 2019 report. The report also laid out four major concerns that surface consistently among faculty about SU’s handling of salary inequity adjustments.

Concerns included what the committee called a lack of a standard process for making salary adjustments among SU’s schools and colleges and the inability of current salary adjustments to address long-term effects of salary inequities. The report also claimed the university hasn’t been transparent in its adjustment of faculty salaries.

Talia Trackim | Digital Presentation Director

The Women’s Concerns Committee supports a “make-whole” model of rectifying pay inequity, according to the report. The model, used by the United States Department of Labor, establishes an assessment of back pay which considers earnings lost due to past pay inequity, per the DOL’s website.

The committee’s concerns echoed a statement signed by more than 200 women faculty in April 2018 that criticized SU’s handling of the gender pay gap.

Michele Wheatly, vice chancellor and provost, spoke about SU’s faculty salary adjustments before Grimes and Morton introduced the proposal.

Wheatly said the university is finalizing its review of faculty salaries as updated by the November 2018 Faculty Census. SU will recommend final adjustments to the deans of the university’s schools and colleges as needed, she added.

The provost said she will present more information at the March Senate meeting.

“We are also studying what underlying issues create challenges and barriers to female faculty and faculty from underrepresented groups,” she said. “Some representative topics will include implicit bias, campus climate and culture, mentoring and work-life balance.”

Talia Trackim | Digital Presentation Director

As senators discussed the committee creation proposal from the Women’s Concerns Committee, Wheatly urged the Senate to let university administration continue its current efforts to adjust faculty salaries.

Deborah Pellow, a senator and anthropology professor, said the committee should be permanent so there’s constant overview of pay equity. Faculty have been concerned about the way individual schools and colleges were allowed to have different methods to make salary adjustments, she added.

Pellow also said the Senate shouldn’t leave the solution up to university administration.

“You don’t leave this in the hands of the people who make decisions because that’s where the issue was created in the first place,” she said.

Senators decided to table the motion in the interest of time. The proposal will be reconsidered when the Women’s Concerns Committee determines how to adjust the wording of the proposal, Chair of the Agenda Committee Ramesh Raina said.

Other business

SU chose “Lab Girl,” a 2016 memoir by geobiologist Hope Jahren, as the new book for SEM 100’s shared reading component, Wheatly said. “Lab Girl” tells how Jahren discovered her interest in the science of plants and became a successful researcher.

The first rendition of SEM 100, a first-year forum created to spark discussions about diversity and inclusion, centered around Trevor Noah’s book “Born a Crime.”

Chancellor Kent Syverud also spoke to senators at the meeting about the university’s new ombudsman and his response to proposed changes to Title IX.

Published on January 30, 2019 at 10:25 pm

Contact Emma: esfolts@syr.edu