According to the latest survey of faculty salaries, Duke is doing a great job of maintaining equitable pay among faculty of different races. Data presented to the Academic Council Thursday showed that when Duke factors in rank, department and experience, tenured and tenure-track professors of minority groups and Caucasians are paid equally.
Long-term national data have suggested that minority professors often earn less than their white counterparts, and the reassurance that Duke seems to pay its professors without regard for race is welcome news.
The University has worked to avoid such salary differences, and its success is something that all members of this community can be proud of.
But Duke’s promotion rates for minority and Caucasian faculty are not equal. In fact, according to the biennial study, minority professors are promoted at about double the rate that Caucasian professors are.
In other words, it takes half the time for a black or Latino professor to move through the tenure ranks as it does for a white professor.
On the one hand, this is a positive step the University is taking to intentionally increase the number of minority professors.
Duke’s commitment to increasing the diversity of its faculty in this manner is important.
On several occasions, Provost Peter Lange and other administrators have spoken about the difficulty of increasing minority professor representation at all levels, in part, because some fields have few doctoral graduates who are minorities.
The upper part of this pipeline issue is addressed by promoting faculty who are qualified. In turn, studies have shown that the presence of minority faculty yields an increased number of minority students who consider academic professions.
Because many other institutions are also looking to hire academically qualified minority professors, Duke has to create incentives for these faculty to stay here.
Fast tracking exceptional minority professors through the tenure process is a particularly clever solution. The faculty members feel stronger ties to Duke, and the University is able to place the professors in positions where they can be role models not just to students but to younger faculty as well.
Such promotions, however, should not be based primarily on race. Any junior faculty member who is exceptional should qualify for a fast-track tenure process.
Although being a member of a racial minority is one characteristic that makes a faculty member particularly desirable, it is by no means the only one.
Every qualified hire ought to be eligible for promotions. Moreover, in order to maintain the quality of Duke’s standards, the criteria for promotions ought to be the same whether the faculty member is fast-tracked or not.
It makes sense to consider promotions more frequently for certain exceptional candidates, but the standards to promote such people cannot be relaxed.
The goal is to reward work, not to reward race.
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