I am very pleased to present to our members the results of two Working Groups jointly sponsored by the Faculty Association and the Provost to examine pay equity in salaries of full-time tenure stream professors at UBCV.
The committees were struck at the beginning of 2010 with the following mandates:
- The DATA Working Group: to focus on a quantitative analysis of the pay gap and
- The SMART Working Group: to focus on structural measures to prevent and redress gender inequities amongst faculty, focusing on “equal pay for equal work”.
The reports of the two committees (DATA and SMART) are intended to complement one another, and should be read together. The work of these committees is an example of the kind of collaborative work that the Faculty Association engages in with the University. Members of the Faculty Association’s Status of Women Committee worked tirelessly with individuals appointed by the Provost’s office to develop recommendations to address the equity gap, as well as preventing the gap from occurring in the future. Dr. Lara Boyd (Physical Therapy) and Dr. Megan Levings (Surgery) will be doing a presentation on the work of these committees at our Spring General Meeting on March 1. They will share and discuss an analysis of the gender pay gap in professional salaries as well as recommendations to address the gender pay inequity at UBC.
There is still much work to be done on this front. The committees were not able to tackle similar issues at UBCO, or to look at the sessional and instructor streams. These are areas where volunteers from the membership are needed if this work is to get done. So please don’t hesitate to volunteer your services to move this issue along, by contacting the Faculty Association.
The Association is committed to addressing fundamental issues on campus and working with the Administration on resolving these issues wherever possible. I want to thank the leadership of the Status of Women Committee of the Faculty Association, under the direction of the Chair, Dr. Karen Bakker (Geography), as well as our Provost, Dr. David Farrar, for showing how this can happen.
Best,
Nancy Langton, Ph.D.
President, UBC Faculty Association
