The Gannon University chapter of the American Association for University Women (AAUW) will be holding two Start Smart salary negotiation workshops for students.
The first workshop will be held from 4-6 p.m. Monday and the second will be held from 4:30-6:30 p.m. April 5. Both workshops will be held in Room 1200 in the Palumbo Academic Center.
Laura Goble, the director for the Center for Social Concerns, said that the workshops at Gannon started last year.
April 12 is known as Equal Pay Day and is a symbolic movement that shows how much more women have to work to make the same amount of money that a man of equal education and equal skills would work.
Goble said that women would have to work until this date in 2016 to make the same amount of money that a man would make in 2015.
Goble said that the primary focus of the workshop is understanding the wage gap. She said that a large part of that reason is college students going into the workforce and settling for lower salaries.
She said this means that even if they are on pace with getting raises they start lower so they end lower.
Goble also said that the workshop will help students learn how to make a budget, research the salary for your career, how to understand salary range and help practice negotiating.
“It’s really important in that first job to feel confident to say ‘Can you tell me some more about the fringe benefits or the healthcare benefits?’”
Goble also said that these workshops are important because most women who came to the workshops last year said that didn’t know how to make a budget, project expenses or negotiate salaries.
Goble also said the most important part is understanding what you can do to reduce the wage gap.
“A lot of it is just education,” Goble said. “It’s not a malevolent system that wants to oppress women. It’s just that women are less likely to negotiate and they’re less likely to feel comfortable doing it.”

SAMANTHA GRISWOLD
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