Focus on issues beyond salary, Noble tells FSEC

"I don't think the salary story is the most interesting or important story (to come out of the task force report)," Bernice K. Noble, professor of microbiology and task force co-chair, told the Faculty Senate Executive Committee at its Feb. 5 meeting. "There are lots of other aspects (of the report) that are more readily dealt with."

Noble cautioned senators against getting "hung up" on the salary disparity issue. Although the task force found a $8,500 disparity between the salaries of males and females at the full professor level, there is no evidence of a disparity at the assistant and associate levels, she said.

In dealing with the disparity issue, the task force was very careful to make comparisons only on the basis of comparable years in title, she said, "because the issue is often raised, 'well, women didn't get (more) money because they weren't good enough; they didn't have merit or they haven't been here long enough.

"Discussion of salary is very loaded, is very emotional," Noble said. "I would like us to take this information (on salaries) to go forward."

Noble briefed senators on the task force's report, which, she said, found "a very thick glass ceiling at this institution." There are not enough women at the top echelons of the university and a disproportionate number of women at the bottom, she said.

Among the task force's recommendations that Noble outlined were:

· Establish an Office for Women that would maintain intra- and extramural records and data, sponsor networking activities, serve as a coordinator of activities and publicity, increase universitywide awareness of women's perspectives and workplace needs, identify women leaders and conduct climate surveys. Until such an office can be established, the task force suggested that its mandate be extended and expanded to include these functions.

· Increase the representation of women, particularly at the higher levels of academic and managerial units. "We need more highly placed women; we need to start making cracks in that ceiling," Noble said.

· Develop a procedure for dealing with sexual harassment.

· Establish child-care facilities on the North Campus.

· Promote scholarship around gender issues and women's issues.

She said the committee agrees with the task force's recommendations, particularly that a standing committee monitor the university's progress "as it becomes more gender diverse."

In addition, she urged that a standing committee on racial issues at UB be established.

Michael Frisch, professor of history and American studies, concurred with Noble's view that there are issues other than salary disparity that the university should focus on.

These issues "connect dramatically to the issues that are facing the university in terms of its survival and its viability and its attractability and its recruitment of students and its recruitment of graduate students and its recruitment and retention of facultyŠ," he said.

For example, he said, at the administrative level, there should be some mechanism for "riding herd" on personnel searches "and say, 'we know each one is particular, but somehow there's a larger institutional interest in altering the profile that our university projects.'"

Frisch said he's heard that there are dramatic changes afoot at Buffalo State College-an institution with which he said UB competes for students -because Muriel Moore, former UB vice president for public service and urban affairs and current Buffalo State president, "is making a lot of difference there."

"We can't afford to be left behind in all of this, even when it's not anybody's fault necessarily that such and such a candidate didn't accept the offer (of the deanship) for the med school or that Betsy Cromley (former professor and chair of the Department of Architecture in the School of Architecture and Planning) went to Northeastern or whatever it's going to be," he said.

"The situation needs to changeŠ I think we have to try to encourage the administration to see this, as Bernice says, as really an opportunity if we really want to make this a friendlier and more attractive place, which we desperately need to do, to prioritize some way of moving forward on these issues without getting involved in a lot of hair-splitting over who did what to produce this three years ago or five years ago."

Added Noble: "The academic rules are changing rapidly; this particular institution has been very slow to see that. The less responsive we are, the further behind we're going to fallŠ and the more likely we are to collapse academically, economically....

"That's why I say, in a simplified way, that women are the solution, they're not the problem."

Jack Meacham, professor of psychology, said that his own department has lost several good female faculty members during the past several years and is trying hard to hire additional women. Some of the female candidates who have visited UB have been among the best in their subfields.

"But I'm not confident of our ability to hire them because they are very aware of what the climate is on this campus," he said. "I'm very concerned about us getting in a downward spiral here because we haven't looked after these issues. We're finding it increasingly difficult to get the very best new faculty and the very best graduate students to come to our programs."

Noble told senators that the impetus for changing the environment for women at UB has to come from the faculty.

"We've made some suggestions, the university administration has a zillion things on their table and we have to help them to see which are the things that are the most important to move forward," she said. "And as far as I'm concerned, that's now your job."

Faculty members should consider what they think are the most important issues-such as salary inequity or lack of child-care facilities on the North Campus-and "take the initiative and make sure that your chair knows it, that your dean knows it. If you think that the women in your department are underpaid and you're angry and humiliated about it, go to your chair and say 'that's where our money has to go.'

"That has to come from the grass roots," Noble added. "We've (the task force) given you the information that you needŠthere are lots of competent people who didn't know about it. And once they can see them outlined like that, they'll want to change. They don't want to be in an environment where there's that much injustice or unfair hardships for women. But the action has to come from you."