To the Editor:
In response to Friday's article on coaches' salaries, ("Gender gap in coaches' salaries scrutinized," Nov. 6) I want to emphasize that we are committed to fair and competitive salaries for all of our coaches. The $1.1 million investment in coaching salaries, as recommended by the Athletics Review Committee and endorsed by President Ruth Simmons, is an effort, across the board, to improve the salaries of all our coaches.
As the charts included with the article illustrate most glaringly, our coaching salaries overall are lower than our peers, and that deficiency in compensation deserves to be addressed, as we would with any other class of employees at Brown who are underpaid to an extent that recruitment and retention could be concerns. In fact, the discrepancy between salaries for coaches of men's teams versus women's teams is smaller at Brown than at many of our peer schools, but it has been a value in our salary review to lessen this difference as much as possible. We need to know the market for each position to insure that we can pay what it costs to recruit and retain quality coaches, but we focused equally on the experience and success of each individual coach, his/her tenure at Brown and the duties involved in the particular position — how many athletes on the team, how many assistant coaches to supervise, etc.
This salary review, and the recommendation for increases, is an endorsement of the importance of the teaching students receive from coaches. By attracting and retaining high-caliber coaches, we provide a quality experience for the members of women's and men's teams at Brown.
Margaret Klawunn
Vice President for Campus Life and Student Services
