Seeking Female Faculty

University of Arkansas aims for gender equality

Women comprised only 24 percent of the faculty at the University of Arkansas in 1998, compared with 30.1 percent nationally at public universities. But the UA women are paid better, on average, than their female counterparts at other universities, although salaries for women still trail those of men at the UA and nationally.

The UA had 173 female faculty members and 548 male faculty members last year, according to statistics compiled by the UA’s Office of Institutional Research from the American Association of University Professors and the Chronicle of Higher Education Almanac.

The discrepancy isn’t so noticeable at the assistant professor level, which is entry-level for a full-time university teaching appointment. The UA had 91 female and 126 male assistant professors last year.

But in the category of full professors, men outnumbered women almost 10-to-1, 267 to 28. Full professors have tenure and better pay than assistant and associate professors.

Dan Bennett, chairman of the UA’s School of Architecture and interim vice chancellor for academic affairs, says the UA has made an effort over the years to hire more women. He says three women were recently hired in faculty positions in the School of Architecture, and the faculty in that school now mirrors the student body in architecture, which is 35 percent female.

Bennett says women have been moving into the field of university teaching steadily over the past 15 years. Bennett says the UA is only now seeing the results of the influx of women beginning a college education in the 1970s and 1980s.

The number of assistant professors supports Bennett’s theory. It takes a new hire at the assistant professor level at least six years to get tenure and became an associate professor. And many of the upper-level teaching positions require a doctoral degree, which also takes time to complete.

In another 20 years, women who got on the professorship track a decade or so ago may become full professors and even out that discrepancy, says Kathy Van Laningham, assistant vice chancellor for academic affairs.

Salary difference

The average female faculty member at the UA earned $54,156 in 1998. That’s 3 percent higher than the national average of $52,583 for women faculty members at public universities.

At the same time, the average male faculty member at the UA brought in $56,324, 2.3 percent less than the national average for male profs.

Men traditionally have been in higher-paying professions such as business, law and engineering. So those divisions of the UA have more male faculty members (and male students), and professorships pay better in those fields.