Deaf and Hard of Hearing Women’s Council

The Let’s Talk Money Deaf and Hard of Hearing (DHH) Women’s Council provided formative assessment to project leadership throughout the grant, highlighted areas for compensation-related improvements, and sponsored a negotiation workshop for graduate students at Gallaudet University.

As Council members reflected on their experiences, they offered the following points for institutions to consider:

Salary transparency – Transparency promotes accountability and allows faculty to benchmark their salaries against institutional standards. It is crucial that institutions, especially those serving the deaf/hard of hearing population, publicly share information regarding institutional pay ranges, compensation criteria and clear scales for pay adjustments. A communication plan including multiple avenues such as newsletters or workshops about faculty pay processes can facilitate such transparency.

Benchmark – Maintaining competitive and equitable salaries for women in academia requires regular benchmarking. Institutions should work with faculty from across the board to review data from peer institutions to ensure salary equity and fairness. It is important that institutions regularly administer salary studies and make necessary adjustments to eliminate any disparities that exist. This can be facilitated through formation of a committee or task force that provides regular feedback regarding faculty pay practices.

Value proposition – Institutions should work to recognize the essential value that women faculty bring to academia. This should not be limited to research, teaching and or services but should include other key indicators such as community engagement, mentoring, professional development, new course development and more. Other activities such as committee work and diversity initiatives should be given equal consideration when discussing merit increases. By highlighting these important value propositions, institutions will be able to reframe their requirements for merit and include activities that women often lead.

Burden of proof – In most cases, women are often tasked with the burden of proving the inequality exists within institutions. However, this may lead to conflict between the administration and women faculty and therefore increase the pressure already in place as they attempt to negotiate for salary fairness. In fact, it should be the responsibility of the administrators to ensure fairness in the salary and compensation decisions made by the pay-decision makers they oversee.