SEMO STRIVES FOR FAIR PAY

One of every five full-time employees at Southeast Missouri State University makes over $50,000 annually, salary records show.

Southeast has 941 full-time employees; 201 make over $50,000.

Last year, 192 Southeast employees made more than $50,000.

Southeast employees make good money. The overall average salary for all Southeast employees is $36,648.

But women still lag behind men in average salaries in many job classifications.

Women hold nearly half of the full-time jobs at Southeast, but they make $11,275 less on average than their male co-workers. That's due partly to the fact that 169 of the 442 jobs held by women are clerical positions, which pay less on average than other jobs on the Southeast campus.

Since being hired as university president in 1996, Dr. Dale Nitzschke has pushed for greater diversity in both the student body and the campus workforce.

Under Nitzschke, the university has tried to reach out to the minority community, both on and off campus. The school has sought to recruit minority applicants. Nitzschke established the President's Commission on Minority Affairs.

But Southeast still employs few blacks. Fifty-three of Southeast's full-time positions -- less than 6 percent -- are filled by blacks. That is four fewer blacks than were employed a year ago.

Blacks fill seven of Southeast's 60 administrative positions and eight of 363 faculty positions. Three of Southeast's top administrators are black.

"The goals have not changed," said Nitzschke.

But he said there are often few black applicants for jobs. Southeast must compete with other public and private schools for minority faculty. Private schools typically pay more, Nitzschke said.

Southeast isn't in the quota business when it comes to hiring minorities, he said. All applicants are judged on the same criteria, he said.

Nitzschke said he expects to see a more diversified workforce at Southeast in the future. But he said it will take time. "It will be a very slow process."

The Rev. William Bird, one of Cape Girardeau's black ministers, serves on the Cape Girardeau Board of Education and on the university's Minority Affairs Commission.

Bird said Nitzschke has made an effort to provide a more welcoming atmosphere for minority students and employees at Southeast.

"You can't just get out there and change day to night overnight," he said. "I think he is creating the atmosphere for the acceptance of change."

Associate Provost Dr. Dennis Holt said salary differences at Southeast aren't the result of gender or racial bias.

He said a study last winter of faculty salaries at Southeast found that four factors account for salary differences: academic discipline, rank, years of service and merit history.

"The salary system is fundamentally sound,' said Holt.

Mike Dougherty, the school's personnel services director, agreed.

It's often difficult to compare faculty salary averages, he said.

"While there is a certain tendency to say that all associate professors, for example, have the same job, there is a wide disparity in the salaries paid across the country by discipline," Dougherty said.

For example, universities typically have to pay more for faculty in accounting than in philosophy, he said.

The university has bumped up faculty salaries in recent years in an effort to make them competitive with comparable institutions across the country.

There's good reason for that, Southeast officials said. To hire faculty Southeast must compete nationally with other schools.

Dougherty said women aren't slighted when it comes to salaries. In three of the four faculty ranks, women are paid more on average than their male counterparts.

In terms of full professors, the average salary is higher for men than women.

But Dougherty said that is because male professors on average have been teaching at Southeast for 20 years compared to an average of nearly 16 years for female professors.