UW one of 10 schools looking achieve gender equality on their campuses by 2020

A major gathering of leaders from ten of the world’s top universities gathered in New York at the United Nations Tuesday.

The University of Waterloo’s President was there to join the conversation about gender parity.

President Feridun Hamdullahpur was the only Canadian participant out of the five continents represented at Tuesday’s event which looks to achieve gender equality on campuses by 2020.

Back in August, it was announced that female faculty at the university would receive a $3000 raise after getting only 96-98.5% of what their male counterparts were making.

Hamdullahpur says he was able to get feedback from those at the conference after bringing up what the schools calls a “gender-based salary anomaly”.

‘I did talk about it because I was quite proud of this. We did this because it was the right thing to do for us, we will go back and look at it again, but when we look at it, I’m quite optimistic that we will not find that gap happening again (…) It was also a moment for me to learn from my colleagues as to what they were doing at their institutions. It gave me great pride and confidence that the University of Waterloo was doing more than its fair share.”

Hamdullahpur adds gender equality isn’t something we can ignore.

“We cannot be complacent and sit back and say, ‘we got where we wanted, and everything should be fine’ (…) It is my business, it’s your business, it’s everybody’s business that we have a world that is equal.”

The University of Waterloo also has the HeforShe initiative which already encourages more female faculty representation at the school, and encourages more women to enter traditionally male-dominated disciplines.