ADVANCE Partnership: Building Community Understanding of the Institutional Compensation System

This project aims to significantly expand knowledge of best practices for faculty compensation to a broader community in higher education and provide critical insights to guide compensation practices. Salary outcomes and pay practices are closely related to the quality of work life and inform our knowledge of what (and who) is important to the organization.

In this domain, institutional structures and systems of power are influential. Women consistently earn less than men, even when controlling for demographic and background variables; a wage gap that increases for women of color. In higher education, this gap persists among faculty, particularly at institutions with the highest levels of research.

This project’s objective is to improve institutional understanding and influence actions regarding pay equity through broader comprehension of compensation structures. Project activities have three aims: First, engage administrative units (Human Resources, Institutional Research, Diversity/Inclusion, Legal, and Academic Affairs) in a collaborative relationship supported by university leadership.

Second, enhance pay decision-makers’ understanding of and basis for pay decisions, and their ability to communicate to individuals how their pay is determined. Third, increase faculty knowledge of institutional pay practices while emphasizing the importance of inclusion and institutional values. Expected outcomes from this work include improvements in institutional policies and practices, faculty perceptions of pay equity, leadership skills of pay decision-makers, and institutional engagement beyond the project partners.

The project involves collaborations with three university partners Villanova, Drexel, and Gallaudet, the American Association of University Women (AAUW), and the NSF INCLUDES Hub and the ASPIRE Alliance. The three partner-universities will undertake actions to: promote an inclusive work environment and informed faculty community that understands its financial model about compensation; align university resources with institutional values to promote enhanced equity; and support systemic, sustainable change through institutionalization of compensation interventions.

The project will employ a multi-frame organizational analysis approach, integrating structural, human resource, political, and symbolic aspects of organizational theory, to better understand each partner-university. The partner cohort will explore multiple dimensions of justice regarding salary – distributive, procedural, interpersonal, and informational – through workshops, coaching sessions, and organizational action plans.

Ongoing formative assessment will include input from women of color and deaf and hard-of-hearing women. The project’s reach will expand to additional institutions through the partnerships with the American Association of University Women, NSF INCLUDES Hub, and the ASPIRE Alliance. Expected outcomes include implementation of compensation-related accountability measures, improved faculty understanding of pay practices, increased comprehension of equity among salary decision-makers, and infrastructure changes to support ongoing progress.

The NSF ADVANCE program is designed to foster gender equity through a focus on the identification and elimination of organizational barriers that impede the full participation and advancement of diverse faculty in academic institutions. Organizational barriers that inhibit equity may exist in policies, processes, practices, and the organizational culture and climate.

ADVANCE "Partnership" awards provide support for projects that scale-up evidence based systemic change strategies to enhance gender equity for STEM faculty regionally or nationally.

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.