After the Boston University Faculty Council released a study earlier this fall citing gender and market wage discrepancies, President Robert Brown said he and other university administrators have outlined potential solutions to take effect next fall.
“There are two very different issues,” Brown said, adding that while the university will not tolerate gender bias, the discrepancies between academic disciplines create a more complicated matter.
The Faculty Council, chaired by Roscoe Giles, is an elected body of professors representing each university school. The Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Council released the study in October, using data from 2004 university salaries.
“We’re in the middle of the fix,” said Giles, the College of Engineering Electrical and Computer Engineering deputy director.
Brown said the university is in the process of verifying and removing biases revealed by the study.
“We want to have a system that is gender-, race-blind that is merit-based and market-driven for a salary,” he said.
Giles said although no changes have been given the final approval, solutions to close the gender gap will be implemented next fall.
“In the context of this year’s round of salaries … they have made some adjustments to take some steps in decreasing the gender gap that we have identified,” he said. “There is a round of normal salary changes every September on the Charles River Campus, [and] I hope in each of those we will take major steps in correcting problems.”
In addition to the bias problem, the study also cited wage discrepancies amongst different academic disciplines – a finding Brown said he is not convinced is a real problem.
“This question, can we be a leader in market salaries, is a strategic position issue,” he said. “We are drilling down and looking very carefully at all the information we can get to find out exactly where we are.
“The data that was accessible to the Equity and Inclusion Committee of the Faculty Council is average data that was averaged across an aggregate of the whole university,” Brown continued, “and that doesn’t tell you anything.”
While the study’s results appear jolting at first glance, Brown said in actuality, the figures averaged “cannot really be compared.”
“Imagine if you average the data for the Red Sox across the players and the custodians – that would be meaningless data,” he said. “The custodian staff for the Red Sox is operating in a different market than Manny Ramirez.”
Giles said instead of looking at data spanning the entire university, officials are trying to find discipline-based data.
“They are looking at the salaries across the university in a broader perspective as well,” he said.
Despite the university’s effort to accurately analyze differences in salary distribution, Brown said a solution for this “market problem” may be impossible.
“Its kind of an ugly fact that we try not to talk about at universities,” he said. “But, the truth is, different faculty and different disciplines get paid more than others because they are market-driven.”
Biomedical Engineering professor Cassandra Smith said although she believes that market discrepancies are not “an issue of fairness, but reality,” the dichotomy of faculty within the university warrants attention.
“Of importance is that President Brown is recognizing that the faculty – not the administration – is the university and need to be compensated appropriately,” she said. “The recent survey revealed the apparent low compensation of BU faculty, which contrasts sharply with the exceptionally high salaries paid [of a] high number of BU administrators.”
Economics assistant professor Francois Gourio said while he has only been at the university for a year, from his experience the university’s salaries appear competitive market-wise.
“Concretely, I was looking for a first job last year after finishing my Ph.D. and I got several offers,” he said. “So in the end I was able to ask BU to adjust its offers to the same level as the other ones.”
Regardless of the reasons causing the discrepancies – ranging from the size of BU’s endowment to the fact that BU never compared its salaries before last year – Gourio said the university must make an effort to remain competitive.
“BU aspires to be one great research university,” he said. “This means we are in competition with many universities in and outside the U.S. for both young researchers and more senior ones. As a result, BU has no choice but to pay market-based salaries, i.e. to match offers from outside universities.”
Under President emeritus Aram Chobanian, last year was the first year the university participated in the American Association of University Professors salary survey. Giles said the Council will continue to pursue the salary question and any new data attained, whether it is positive or negative, will be presented for discussion.
“Our committee is still very active and very concerned with the entire spectrum of faculty benefits and salary issues,” he said.
In addition to the AAUP, the Council is also tapping the U.S. Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System as an external reference on university salaries.
Giles said he is confident in Brown and Provost David Campbell’s ability to tackle the issues at hand.
“I’m very pleased that the president and provost are taking it very seriously,” he said. “We’re awaiting some reports of salaries for this semester, so I don’t have new data for follow up, but I do have high expectations.”
DFP Staff Writer Jean Bentley contributed to this report.