TCU’s new study on gender pay disparities offers both good news and bad news for female professors.

The good news is there may not be as big of a pay disparity as some may think. The bad news is what pay discrepancies exist are largely a result of more men who are in charge of their departments than women.

This would be discouraging any year, but after an election where two women got closer to the leading the country than most had before, it’s especially discouraging to see that women still lag behind men in leading academic departments, especially at TCU.

Of course, when it comes to selecting department chairs and other administrative positions, whoever is the most qualified for the job matters the most, not gender or race.

The really good news from all this is TCU’s faculty and administration care enough about the problem to look into it, as well as look into ways to fix it.

TCU taking the initiative after the University of Texas’s study was released shows that it took the study seriously and that they take the problem of gender inequalities seriously.

Anyone can complain about the way things should be, but TCU showed it actually wants to do something about it by creating focus groups and assembling a task force to investigate claims of sexual harassment.

Psychology professor Dianna McFarland told the Skiff she can look at TCU’s situation as either a glass half-empty or half-full. Because of TCU’s initiative, she chooses to look at it as half-full.

With hope, it’s a situation that one day will leave the glass completely full.

Features editor Valerie Hannon for the editorial board