1997_03 The Daily Collegian March 1997

              8
THE DAILY
COLLEGIAN
Monday, March 10, 1997
BACK PAGE
Stanford improves pay gap between male, female professors
By Michelle Levander
San Jose Mercury (N'ews,
Knight-Ridcier Newspapers
PALO .ALTO—The pay gap be¬
tween male and female professors
at Stanford has narrowed, but the
university continues to lag far be¬
hind other prestigious schools in the
hiring and promotion of women
faculty.
Stanford has made "slow, steady,
progress" on gender equity. Provost
Condoleezza Rice said Thursday at
a faculty Senate meeting as she is¬
sued a report that has been sought
by a faculty women's caucus.
Leaders of the caucus gave Rice
credit for her efforts but said they
were concerned about Stanford's
status as a "bottom feeder" nation¬
ally when it comes to hiring women
professors. Stanford needs more
system-wide change, they said, and
should provide professors with
more detailed information on pay
imbalances.
In the 1992-93 school year. Rice
reported, a female tenured profes¬
sor earned 87 percent of a male
professor's salary on average. By
the 1995-96 school year, that gap
had shrunk, with female professors
earning 93 percent of males' pay.
In some departments disparities are
as much as 10 percent greater than
the average, she conceded.
Rice's report, presented three
years after the last comprehensive
faculty review on gender equity,
showed that it's still rare to see
women in leadership positions at
Stanford.
Rice is the university's highest
ranking administrator. But there are
no female deans, and the number
of female associate deans has de¬
clined from five in 1991-92 to two
today. The number of female de¬
partment chairs, however, has in¬
creased — from two to 10
Stanford made progress in re¬
cruiting women professors, who
now make up nearly 18 percent of
the faculty,~up from 16 percent in
1993. But other universities have
improved their records as well,
leaving Stanford hugging the bot¬
tom in a survey of 21 major uni¬
versities, according to a San Jose
Mercury News analysis conducted
in November. That analysis showed
that only MIT and CalTech. two
engineering schools, fared worse.
At the meeting Thursday. Stanford
adminfctrators acknowledged that
little had changed in Stanford's
standing.
"1 would note the numbers aren't
flying up, but at least they are mov¬
ing in the right direction," Rice said.
But. she added, "we will keep try¬
ing to climb out of the bottom tier
status."
Despite criticism, women's cau¬
cus members gave Rice good marks
for her efforts.
Rice personally reviews each
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pay decision made by school deans.
She's given major raises to more
than fifteen female professors
whose pay was out of sync and she
has actively promoted the use of a
subsidy fund that can be used to pay
half of female professors' salaries
in departments where they are seri¬
ously undcrrepresented.
Because so many decisions
about pay and hiring are made by
individual deans, she's also worked
hard to send them the message that
they need to improve their record.
Rice said.
Still, substantial problems re¬
main, caucus leaders said.
Frances Conley. the Stanford
neurosurgeon whose charges of
sexual harassment at Stanford's
medical 'school provoked a national
furor, said numbers aside, not
enough is being done on campus to
provide a supportive environment
for women. She pointed to univer¬
sity statistics that showed a much
greater percentage of female faculty
leave Stanford than their male
counterparts. This is particularly
true, she said, at the medical school.
Law school professor Deborah
Rhode, a caucus founder, said the
university's leaders are committed
to improving imbalances but have
had a hard time institutionalizing
change in practice
"Universities are such feudal
places," she said. "A lot of decision-
Shales
making power is exercised within
professional schools and depart¬
ments. There is only so much you
can do with oversight."
Myra Strober. an economist and
caucus leader, called for more data
from the provost on pay and hiring
so that the faculty has a better sense
of which departments are furthest
behind.
"It's difficult to judge the
university's true progress oh pay
without more detailed data by
school." she said.
At Thursday's meeting. Rice
defended her case-by-case ap¬
proach to remedying past wrongs.
History Professor Albert
Camarillo. the chairman of a new
Stanford program in race and
ethnicity, said Stanford should set
hiring goals so it can judge its
progress five or 10 years down the
line. "It gels to the core of institu¬
tional priorities. It keeps us think¬
ing year to year," he said.
Rice, an opponent of quotas, dis¬
agreed.
"I think we are going about it the
right way." she said.
As someone who might have
been targeted because of race or
gender, she said, she is reluctant to
embrace quotas. Such strategies
often backfire, she said, instead of
achieving their backer's goals. In¬
dividuals, she said, should be hired
and promoted on their own merit.
Continued from page 3.
chorman. is the same actor who so
amusingly plays J. Peterman on
"Seinfeld." It's virtually impossible
for a fan of that show to see him
and not laugh.
"Hey. look, ma — J. Peterman
is doing the news!"
There are a few deft touches.
Even when she is tied to a chair and
gagged. Postman continues to be
mindful that she's on TV. and a
makeup woman rushes in to pat her
sweaty forehead with powder.
When the talk show drags on, the
station apologizes for prompting a
scheduled baseball game and prom-
Ballots
Continued from page 2.
ancient biblical story the citizens of
a great civilization decided to build
a monument to their own greatness
- a tower to the heavens. Their god,
seeing that they were of one mind
and language, realized that they
could achieve anything if they were
allowed to continue in their endeav¬
ors. He would not permit this, so
he made them all speak different
ises to air the game in its entirety
once the crisis is over.
And a psychiatrist who had been
booked on the show corrects
McGrath after he shouts out. "I'm
not a nut case!" Says the ever tact- •»
ful shrink: "We don't use the term
'nut case.' Mr. McGrath."
Maybe if the movie had been a
savage satire like "Network"—
funny on purpose instead of by ac¬
cident—it might have worked. But
what the filmmakers whipped up is
a preachy and preposterous diatribe.
Its bark far exceeds its bite and let's
face it: Two more hours of barking
is just what we don't need on tele¬
vision.
languages and spread them to the
corners of the earth; their tower un¬
finished. We've failed to insist upon
English fluency for all our citizens
so. instead of a united United States
we are a country of fragmented, iso¬
lated factions that can't communi¬
cate. With a common language we
might fulfill the potential of
America; without it we will suffer
the same fate as the architects of the
Tower of Babel
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