[475] MTSU helps women bridge the gender pay gap on Equal Pay Day April 8

MURFREESBORO — The emphasis will be on a woman’s earning power as MTSU observes Equal Pay Day.

Informational booths on pay disparity will be set up on the first floor of the Student Union and in the lobby of the McWherter Learning Resources Center on campus on Tuesday, April 8, to mark Equal Pay Day in America.

The National Committee on Pay Equity, a coalition of organizations working to end wage discrimination, maintains the gap between men’s and women’s earnings remains statistically stagnant. In 2012, women’s earnings were 76.5 percent of men’s earnings in America, according to U.S. Census Bureau data.

April 8 was chosen as Equal Pay Day because that date symbolizes how far into 2013 women had to work to earn as much as men earned in 2012, according to www.pay-equity.org. The NCPE encourages Americans to wear red on that day to symbolize how deeply women and minorities are “in the red.”

To empower MTSU’s future alumnae to break through the gender barriers, $tart $mart Negotiation Workshops will be conducted at 4:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. April 8 in the Student Union ballroom.

The free workshops will be led by Doris Seinberg of the WAGE Project, a tax-deductible, nonprofit organization founded “to end discrimination against women in the American workplace in the near future,” according to www.wageproject.org.

These gatherings are designed to teach young women how to determine what employers will pay for the jobs they want when they graduate and how to negotiate what they are worth for doing those jobs.

Only the first 40 women students to register will be accepted. To sign up, contact the June Anderson Center for Women and Nontraditional Students, which is in the Center for Student Involvement and Leadership, at 615-898-5812.

The Equal Pay Day booths are co-sponsored by the June Anderson Center, the Murfreesboro chapter of the American Association of University Women, the Women’s and Gender Studies Program and the President’s Commission on the Status of Women.

The $mart $tart Negotiation Workshops are co-sponsored by the June Anderson Center, the Murfreesboro chapter of AAUW, the Distinguished Lecture Fund and the MTSU National Women’s History Month Committee.