An "anonymous" letter from a reader on strategic planning at SCSU.

King:

One can go and �take� the KPI survey and not answer any of the questions, just to see what they ask. I found only a few that made any sense at all.

One that I really found confusing was in Diversity and Social Justice category: �The University will strive to create and maintain a welcoming environment for students, faculty, staff, and administration from all walks of life. This includes maintaining a rich environment that models respect for difference and providing a supportive and nurturing climate for all university students, faculty, staff and administrators of color.�

Among the options for meeting this KPI were these two:

1-Disparities in the salaries and benefits/support, retention, and promotion of employees based on race, ethnicity, gender, and age will decrease in any given planning period.

2- The University will provide comparatively more competitive opportunities, salaries, and incentives for hiring, retaining, and promoting highly qualified faculty, administrators, and staff in any given planning period.

These struck me as a bit odd. ...as I recall the overall result was that while there might have been a little salary inequity between males and females in earlier years (factoring in differences in years of experience and discipline), that the most recent data used (2000?) essentially found no salary inequity based on gender or race. So if the statistical analysis showed no disparities, how can we list decreasing disparities as a goal? Is this also saying that there is a disparity in promotion based on race, ethnicity and/or age? Do we know that this is true?

And are we then saying with #2 that it will be okay to go �violate� the salary grid in order to give faculty, staff and administrators of color higher salaries? Or are we saying that we�re going to throw out the contract and allow for higher salaries for [any] highly qualified faculty?

S/He's discussing KPIs #9 and #7 in this document. Note the data they cite to use for measurement of #9:

• Average starting salaries for new employees by age, gender and ethnicity
• Average starting salaries for new employees by age, gender and ethnicity
• Percent of new hires who are members of a protected class
• Faculty of color faculty positions as a percent of the overall faculty
• Mean salary by bargaining unit for women and minorities compared to majority employees
• Educational training of faculty; administrative staff-by discipline
• Percent of faculty of color who are tenured
• Faculty promotion rates by gender and ethnicity
• Percent of vacancies filled by promotion by bargaining unit

Sounds like a quota to me. For the other they will not only look at starting salaries but "mean salary by bargaining unit" (read, academic department.) But in a contract that gives raises regardless of merit (if raises are given to anyone, they are equal to all), are we now going to say the only thing meritorious of unequal raises is membership to a protected class?