We have been through two FMI cycles on this campus. Though we await system-wide authorization to release the 2000-01 awards, faculty received their completed tracking sheets some months ago from Dean Paul Barnes, and you are aware of the increases coming to you. So we have something of a track record. I think it is important that you know just what kind of record it is.
Those of you who attended the opening facultymeeting heard me deliver some positive news about the headway we are making to close the salary gap-narrowing the pay differential with comparison institutions at the full professor rank and actually pulling ahead of them at the ranks of assistant and associate professor.
While merit pay has, I believe, helped us to make this progress, some have asked how well merit pay has worked from the standpoint of equity. Is it functioning as well for women as for men, for people of color as for whites? That was a widespread -and appropriate-concern as CSU campuses began to deal with the details of merit pay. With two years of data available to us, I asked last summer that we prepare a campus analysis of awards to tenured and tenure-track faculty. In August, at the faculty meeting,
I reported briefly on the emerging picture of merit pay at San Francisco State. It showed, I said, that merit pay does not disadvantage women and minority faculty.
We have looked at the figures even more closely since then, and the news is strong and positive: We see evidence of broad equity in our FMI process. Our tenured and tenure-track women and faculty of color have, in fact, been helped, not hurt, by it.
A two-year look at SFSU FMI awards to faculty men and women at each tenured/tenure-track rank shows a consistent pattern: At every level, female faculty earned slightly higher percentage-and-dollarawards than men at that rank. During 1999-2000, for example, female assistant professors received an average 5.14 percent FMI, compared to 4.25 percent for men. For associate professors, the figures are 4.67 percent and 3.61 percent, respectively; and for full professor, 4.12 percent and 3.53 percent. The char
t on page 4 presents these data for the 2000-01 FMI cycle, and the story is the same. Female faculty members are faring well under merit pay. At the lower ranks, where they are more substantially represented, they receive FMIs in much the same numbers as their male counterparts. At full professor-where men still significantly outnumber women-men earned a greater number of awards, but at both associate and full professor, women actually earned them in slightly higher proportion to their representation at th
at rank.
When we look at faculty FMI awards by ethnicity, a similarly positive picture emerges. For 1999-2000, the average FMI percentage across tenured/tenure-track ranks was 3.98 percent. Broken down by ethnicity, the percentages were: American Indian, 4.67 percent; Asian, 3.72 percent; Black, 5.27 percent; Hispanic, 4.49 percent; other non-white, 3.09 percent; and white, 3.89 percent. The figures for the 2000-01 FMI cycle, which appear in full in the chart at right, show that in a year in which the average fa
culty FMI was 2.20 percent, faculty of color generally exceeded that figure.
All of this is made more critically important by our tremendous recruiting success over the past 12 years. Since 1988, 72 percent of our new tenured/tenure-track appointments have been women and faculty of color. So when I look at these FMI statistics, I see reassurance that we are supporting and encouraging our newest faculty members, providing an environment in which they can-and do-flourish. This bodes tremendously well for the UniversityŐs future.
We are, as you know, poised to begin processing 2000-01 FMIs the moment we receive word from the ChancellorŐs Office. In the meanwhile, though, we are about to begin on the next cycle. In accordance with the current collective bargaining agreement and our own Academic Senate policy, on the last Friday in January 2001, Dean Barnes will start the process by providing FMI and SSI program information to department chairs and directors for distribution to faculty. We will continue on our senate-approved cale
ndar throughout the spring semester.
As we approach the holidays, there is one gift I would like to see us share, and that is a renewed appreciation of the talented, progressive, idiosyncratic and thoroughly fascinating community that is San Francisco State University. To every member of that community, I offer my appreciation and warm wishes for the holiday season.
Tenured/Tenure-Track Merit Increases 2000-2001 by gender and ethnicity
