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Officials name senior vice president, chief of staff
By Fiona Riley, Assistant News Editor • March 26, 2024

Officials update faculty on progress of salary equity initiative, work toward ‘proactive’ fix

Christopher+Bracey%2C+the+vice+provost+for+faculty+affairs%2C+said+at+a+Faculty+Senate+meeting+Friday+that+officials+have+increased+salaries+for+some+faculty+whose+pay+was+not+in+the+same+range+as+their+colleagues.
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Christopher Bracey, the vice provost for faculty affairs, said at a Faculty Senate meeting Friday that officials have increased salaries for some faculty whose pay was not in the same range as their colleagues.

Three semesters after beginning a project to improve faculty salary equity, officials said they are working to develop a proactive approach to ensure faculty are properly compensated.

Christopher Bracey, the vice provost for faculty affairs, gave updates about the Faculty Salary Equity Committee’s work to adjust base salaries that lag behind the mean salary of those with similar tenure status and time in rank at a Faculty Senate meeting Friday. He highlighted the number of salary increases officials have made over the past three semesters to eliminate outliers but said the committee wants to develop a dynamic model to address the issue.

“Ideally, we won’t be reactive, constantly having to tweak people on the back end,” Bracey said.

Bracey said committee members developed two regression models to identify regular faculty whose salaries are considered “outliers,” more than one standard deviation lower than the average salary for professors similar to them in tenure and amount of time in current rank. One model included all regular faculty, while the other excluded faculty hired with tenure and “star” faculty to ensure mean salary figures were not skewed upward, he said.

He said the committee worked with the Office of Institutional Research to compile the data.

Bracey said at a senate meeting last March that the committee previously faced challenges collecting and analyzing salary data quick enough to present it to school deans before the figures became outdated. He said the addition of controls for tenure and time in rank allowed the committee to expedite the process and report data quicker.

Bracey said the committee completed a review of faculty in the Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, the Elliott School of International Affairs, the School of Business, the School of Engineering and Applied Science, the Graduate School of Education and Human Development and the GW Law School earlier this month. The committee identified 79 faculty salaries that fell one standard deviation below the mean, he said.

He said committee members work with the deans of each school to determine if there are “legitimate” factors contributing to a professor’s outlier status, like market factors, poor teaching ability or lackluster research output.

“These are just a sampling of the legitimate factors that might explain why someone’s salary seems a little bit lower than what we otherwise would expect for them,” he said.

As a result, although almost 80 faculty members’ salaries were flagged in this month’s review, officials adjusted only 17 salaries because other factors contributed to lower salaries in the majority of cases, Bracey said.

The committee reviewed CCAS, SEAS, Elliott School and business school faculty salaries last November and identified 60 faculty salaries that fell below the mean, and officials increased 10 of them, he said. Committee members also reviewed School of Nursing and Milken Institute School of Public Health faculty salaries in July and found 13 salaries that lagged behind the mean, and officials increased three of them, Bracey said.

He said the committee has worked to keep the number of adjustments low but added that the number of salary adjustments officials have made has remained “flat” for the last two years.

“Although they’re not always the same people that we are adjusting, we seem to be adjusting about the same number,” Bracey said.

He said the next step for the committee is to work with Brian Blake, the incoming provost and executive vice president, to consider the reasons that naturally cause a faculty member’s salary to fall below the mean. He said he wants to “constructively engage on the front end” to learn in advance of a faculty member’s outlier status.

“That’s probably a more constructive and productive way of doing this,” he said.

Anthony Yezer, a faculty senator and a professor of economics, said members of the committee should consider releasing the regression equation they modeled so individual faculty members can determine where they fall relative to the mean salary.

“I bet there’s lots of faculty who would like to see the regression equation you’re using in their school that affects them so that they can put themselves into the equation and see where they are,” he said.

Holly Dugan, a senator and an associate professor of English, said salary equity committee members should consider the effects of gender and parental leave on salary inequity.

“I think that there are conversations to be had around this issue, and I’m interested to see how the data connects to those,” she said.

Bracey said committee members are considering adding determinants like gender, parental leave and minority status to the models to explore other factors that could depress a faculty member’s salary.

“All of these are the kinds of questions that we should probably think about now that we’ve got a rhythm going,” he said.

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