NC hired someone else -- another fresh PhD, also a woman. It took me a while to figure out what happened -- one of their previous women profs appears to have retired, another is still there but is listed on the gender studies page, even though her department is listed as philosophy, and there's also one new hire. There are five lecturers, all male (none of whom have PhDs), two male profs and two female profs.

I am not sure W. necessarily did a better job negotiating in one case than the other -- she probably said about the same things (certainly in the days when I was applying for jobs all over I re-used the same verbiage whenever I could), but was interpreted differently. I also don't know for sure that she took the other job, but assume she did.

Personally I think it's really difficult to write a job application (and all the ancillary emails and such) that doesn't make one sound like either a conciliatory worm or kind of an asshole. Or both by turns, which is even worse.