This academic year’s faculty salaries data reveal an important trend: female faculty and administrators at the University continue to be underrepresented amongst top earners.
A 2014 study of more than 900 tenured and tenure-track professors at the University confirmed the existence of a gender pay gap, with female professors earning 2.7 percent less than their male counterparts. This number was even higher for female associate professors, who earned 5 percent less than their male counterparts. While the study did not determine causality for this difference, a noticeable problem is the lack of women in higher-paying positions in general. The issue is not necessarily that men and women at the University are paid equally — it also has to do with the difficulty that female faculty members face in receiving promotions. Nine of the top ten earners for the 2015-16 fiscal year are male. Among them are Patrick D. Hogan, executive vice president and chief operating officer; Scott Beardsley, dean of the Darden School of Business; and Richard P. Shannon, executive vice president for health affairs, who, with a salary of $721,000, is the top earner. The highest paid female at the University is President Teresa Sullivan, who earns $534,700.
At issue is not whether these salaries are appropriate, but whether they are accessible to women. Pay equity between males and females in different departments is certainly a problem the University should address, but the nearly all-male list of top 10 faculty earners shows that promotion of women to academic dean positions and executive roles deserves more attention.
Moreover, the issue of female faculty promotions is not limited to top positions at the University. Most female faculty members are not tenured or are only adjunct professors. Addressing the gender promotion gap at the bottom level would better set up female faculty members to become academic deans or assume other executive roles at the University.
Discussion of male-female pay equity and of departmental pay equity reappears each year following The Cavalier Daily’s release of University faculty salaries. Addressing these issues will require long-term solutions from the administration such as directed initiatives to promote women to leading University positions. Gender pay gaps are a reality across the country, and the University is no exception.
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