North Texas Daily

Full-time female faculty at the University of North Texas make only 79 cents to a full-time male faculty’s dollar, according to January 2017 employee salary data from the UNT Faculty Senate website. This figure matches the state wage gap from April of 2017.

“It’s not surprising, at all,” French sophomore Naomi White said. “It’s actually lower than I would [have] anticipated.”

Nebraska, Arkansas, Pennsylvania, Washington and Illinois had the same 21-cent wage gap as Texas in 2017, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.

“That’s a ratio you find in a lot of industries,” Adam Trahan, an associate criminal justice professor and member of the Faculty Salary Study Committee said. “In other words, we’re regrettably typical when it comes to that figure.”

Data analysis methodology

The statistical analysis program SAS was used to analyze the data. Outputs can be found here.

Before performing data analysis, department, college and gender information were added manually to the raw data spreadsheet to allow for a more in-depth analysis. The program found the wage gap as a decimal by finding the difference in median salaries between males and females then dividing that resulting number by the larger median salary. In this case, the median refers to the salary at the midpoint of the data when salaries are organized consecutively.

College of Science, Information

Data analysis showed the College of Science and the College of Information wage gaps surpassed the 21-cent state wage gap, at 31 cents and 25 cents. The College of Science employed 28 percent female full-time faculty, and the College of Information employed 65 percent female full-time faculty as of January 2017.

“I don’t think that surprises me,” said Dalia Chowdhury, an assistant professor and co-chair of the Faculty Senate Committee on the Status of Women (CSW). “This is something that is a work in progress, and this is something that is very much noted.”

In only two colleges is the wage gap a negative number: the College of Education and the Mayborn School of Journalism. The full-time female median salary for these colleges is higher than the men’s.

The College of Business and the College of Engineering have the highest overall median salaries at $139,762.57 and $116,677 while the college with the lowest overall median salary is the Mayborn School of Journalism at $61,860.

Resources to succeed as important as salaries

“I think that sometimes the resources are even more important than the salary,” said Angela Nievar, an associate educational psychology professor and member of the Faculty Salary Study Committee. “Because if you’re teaching more classes than everyone else, if you aren’t given space for your lab in comparison to men, then you’re not able to excel, you’re not able to publish, you’re not able to get grants.”

In their priority recommendations for 2014-2015, the Committee on the Status of Women identified resources as one of four main recommendation categories and said, “We suspect that teaching and service responsibilities are disproportionately undertaken by women, but data analysis by gender is needed.”

Chowdhury said the CSW talks about resources all the time, as it comes up over and over again.

“As an assistant professor, this is something that I personally am much more invested in,” Chowdhury said. “I think this is something that has to be a part of the public discourse.”

Sharing salary information could help

“I think we all need to talk about our salaries,” Nievar said. “I think that if we are more open about our salaries then people will realize that some faculty are getting less than others who perhaps aren’t making as big a contribution.”

Speaking on advocacy, Chowdhury said it is essential for male faculty to advocate for the female faculty in terms of getting equal pay.

“Advocacy is the root of all change,” Chowdhury said. “We need to advocate, we need to talk in public, we need not to just keep silent because, when we keep silent, when these issues are silent, then they continue.”

Featured Image: Infographic by Lizzy Spangler