Stratification by gender occurs in many occupations, including the academic profession. When examining salaries of those in higher education, it is "well established" that "women faculty earn less than their male counterparts." Getting students to understand the important sociological issues of gender stratification as it occurs in the workplace is not easy. The author's desire to find ways for students to learn the method of secondary data analysis, motivated her to develop and implement the Faculty Salary Exercise. The goals of this exercise are twofold: (1) to introduce students to gender stratification occurring in their public institution; and (2) to provide an exercise designed to help the students realize both the strengths and weaknesses of using available data as a research method. In this paper, the author discusses aspects of the Faculty Salary Exercise and presents qualitative and quantitative data from Methods of Social Research classes taught over three semesters.(Contains 1 table and 7 footnotes.)