From Sex and the City to Animal Farm: Voices of Women

This week brought aggravation. Not just the I’m-on-call-and-everybody-wants-a-piece-of-me-now stuff, but a lot of committee meetings. As I sat through these “events” I felt angry.
I am not opposed to what we were discussing; much of it makes a lot of sense. So why did I want to shout “No,” and do a Diva-stomp out of the room?
I finally figured it out. For several years I have wanted to make our section better, starting with another faculty member. A salary line received approval a few years back, but we were not allowed to recruit. Even when we confirmed increases in our patient volumes, we were told to wait, to be patient, to be team players. For years our opinions and desires have been ignored or minimized.
Now, a lot of other people are telling us what we must do. They don’t necessarily listen to our input, even when it might be in a patient’s best interest. They have their own agenda, and if we are in the way, well, too damn bad.
We have lost our voice. This theme recurred throughout Sex and the City 2: Miranda’s new boss, Carrie’s bad book review, and the veiled women of the middle east. All literally or symbolically suffered a blockade of their mouths.
I wonder if this could have anything to do with the composition of our section; after all, we are two women. Would a group of men be this disenfranchised? Ever?
In Animal Farm, society initially regulates itself by the Seven Commandments, summarized as all animals are equal. By the end of the book, the powers in charge have changed the most important commandment:

All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others

Yup, I know how they feel. My section, my specialty is definitely less equal these days.
And it’s damn irritating. Maybe I should practice my Diva-stomp.

How Much To Request, How Much To Expect

A question arose in discussion earlier today:

When being promoted in academia, what sort of performance raise should one request or expect?

In biomedical specialties in centers that include medical schools, there are standards for salary by region and rank available through the Association of American Medical Colleges. There are a couple of problems with relying on these data to determine your salary goals.

First, they report median and various percentiles for your department, rank and administrative title, and region of the country. Years in rank generally are not filtered in, so knowing an appropriate “starting salary” is more difficult. Second, these are lag data, reported after the fact. Salaries (should) already be higher than what is reported.

Some institutions use the median for rank and region as a base, adding in fudge factors for years in rank, productivity, and other variables. While this approach seems fair, it means there is really no market working in academic medicine. Basing salaries on regional medians works to keep everyone in the same range, even in short-supply specialties like my own.

The only guide I have ever received was 10%. If you get a promotion or tenure, you should receive at least a 10% raise. If you change institutions, even without change in rank, you should get at least 10% more in salary than in your old position.

Since most of my promotions occurred within a single institution, there was no “request” for a raise with promotion; I knew my chair would make it 10% since he gave me the above guidelines. However, what if you have the opportunity to request a performance raise. How much should you request? Is there a limit to how high you can go without looking like a greedy, ungrateful wretch?

I am looking for experiences. Please leave your comments, opinions, gripes, etc, along with your general area (basic science department, clinical science, whatever). I realize this is an extremely unscientific survey, but we have to start somewhere.

Photo courtesy of PhotoXpress.