화학공학소재연구정보센터
Science, Vol.364, No.6447, 1306-1306, 2019
The art of academic negotiation
I was meeting my new colleagues at a wine and cheese reception. Some of us early-career academics-all members of underrepresented racial and ethnic minority groups-started to talk about salaries. I shared how, after years of feeling undervalued, I had doubled my salary in my new job as assistant professor compared with what I was earning as a lecturer a year prior. Jaws dropped. There were lots of questions. We all agreed that we were ill-prepared to negotiate. No classes had taught us that skill, and people didn't really talk about it. This is probably a challenge for many, but it particularly affects underrepresented minorities who may be first-generation college students and are less likely to have academic mentors with similar experiences. We often find ourselves navigating academia blindly.