GENERAL TO SPECIFIC: OPHTHALMOLOGY WORKING ON PAY EQUALITY?

As regular readers have already seen, women faculty lag behind men in terms of pay across departments at UTMB.  Click here to see UTMB's own charts and how the situation has worsened UTMB-wide.  These UTMB-wide trends, however, happen one department at a time, so let's take a look at one department: Ophthalmology and Visual Sciences.  Let's see how well its chair has addressed the issue. Readers who have Microsoft Excel can click on the link below for specific and in-depth data:

Download pay_comparison_opthalmology_061228.xls 

As readers can see, things have gotten markedly worse from FY06 to FY07, not better.  Apparently, nobody in Ophthalmology was paying much attention to the Office of Equal Opportunity and Diversity's figures on women faculty compensation. In FY06 the total compensation for its five clinical males was $1,396,230 for an average of $279,246.  In FY07, these same five males, according to their memoranda of agreement, are estimated to make $1,887,896 for an average of $377,579, nearly a $100,000 increase in average salary. 

Not surprisingly, Ophthalmology's women have not shared in the men's good fortune.  Total female salary in FY06 for three women clinical faculty was $621,289 for an average of $207,096, about $72,000 below that of the men's FY06 figures.  However, their compensation got even worse the next year.  For FY07 the total female salary for four women (another came on board) was $769,062 for an average of $192,266. In short, women's average salaries went down about $15,000 while men's rose almost $100,000. 

In FY06, the average woman clinical faculty member in Ophthalmology made approximately $72,000 less than her male counterpart.  In FY07, that gap more than doubled to over $185,000. 

True enough, one of the women relinquished her full-time position and went part-time in FY07, while another is a new assistant professor, but this pay gap is not a coincidence. Ophthalmology needs to examine why it's not retaining its women faculty (I can help with that one!) and why the women faculty who do choose to remain are paid significantly less than their male counterparts.  By the way, as I pointed out in an earlier post, another woman in Ophthalmology just turned in her resignation a month or so ago.  If the chair replaces her with an inexperienced assistant professor, the compensation gap will likely widen next year, too. 

At the risk of the Blogmeister's repeating himself, this problem began one department at a time, and it can be solved one department at a time.  Ophthalmology would be a fine place to start, considering its exceptionally poor record. Perhaps its all-male management team will take notice, then again, perhaps not. Nobody paid much attention to UTMB's own figures. 

Comments

Blogmeister: I propose a simple experiment: Send all your postings about Ophthalmology with all your backup documents to Dr. Callender. He's probably being told by the outgoing (but not going very far) administration that everything is wonderful at UTMB. He's probably also being told that anyone who says otherwise is hallucinating.

If Dr. Callender has a lick of integrity, he'll respond positively. If his words are backed up with actions that fix Ophthalmology, much of the academic and local community might collectively breathe a sigh a of relief.

If he ignores you or provides only lip service to Ophthalmology's problems, well, that says something too. We'll all go back to holding our breath.

This is a good idea, but not good enough. Callender will not take action against this chair, because the entire UTMB leadership seems to be backing him. The reason for this backing is unclear, but it is a fact. This being the case, and in order to save that department from complete collapse, the blogmeister should send all these postings to the American Academy of Ophthalmology. AAO is a serious and responsible national organization, and the people in charge there should take actions against a member whose professional and academic conduct is unacceptable.

[HAPPY TO HAVE LEFT]

Why is that no one wants to comment about the astronomical salary the Ophthalmology chair is getting for running off his Faculty?
And now the residents better get a stipend for gas or buy a hybrid car so they can travel to Houston, Clear Lake and Austin to do rotations.
While that helps the residents training as a short time solution what happens to the patients that cannot go anywhere else but UTMB for their eye care and now do not have there a Pediatric, Neuro-oph or Cornea faculty to actually take care of them?

Actually, there have been LOTS of comments about the the ophthalomology chair's salary. Search the blogbar for "ophthalmology." It's something like $650,000. Budget problems? What budget problem?