Molly Broad will be getting a faculty post when she retires from her position as UNC System President. "Broad's current salary is $312,504. If she retired at that salary, her annual faculty pay could be $187,502. The average annual salary for a full professor at UNC-CH was $106,300 in 2003-04, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education." - N & O, 9/24/04. Woah, flashback...
The UNC chancellor has been contrite for his sweetheart deal with outgoing university general counsel Susan Ehringhaus, on whom he lavished a fat severance deal worth almost $320,000. This despite budget cuts that have meant faculty and service cutbacks. After the details of the arrangement became public and drew fire, Moeser said in a prepared statement that he regretted "the controversy surrounding this issue" and admitted he'd made "an error in judgment." He refused to comment about a similar arrangement with another former administrator, Susan Kitchen, who was gifted with a year's salary ($143,000) after resigning July 1.
- Independent Weekly, 1/1/03
If they keep giving out these phat faculty posts there won't be enough money left to pay the real professors! When I was an undergrad at UNC (over ten years ago, cough) it was clear that many of our professors were more interested in publishing than teaching. Looks like things may be getting worse.
Issues:
Comments
Not according to the N&O. A
Not according to the N&O. A faculty position such as this was part of her contract when hired. Plus it's pretty typical to give retiring CEOs termination packages (some color of parachute?) such as this. Higher education prefers to hire academics into administrative roles. I think it's very understandable and positive for the institutions to make sure those individuals come back to the faculty, bringing with their academic expertise as well as what they learned in those administrative positions--especially when someone else is paying for it.
From the N&O article: "Her
From the N&O article: "Her salary will be paid not by the Chapel Hill campus but by the UNC system's Office of the President, said Richard "Stick" Williams, trustee chairman at UNC-CH. "When she comes, the funding comes," Williams said." Sounds like UNC-CH is getting a good deal to me. On top of that, it's a 5-year contract, not tenure.
True, it doesn't come from
True, it doesn't come from the same pot of money. But somehow UNC can always pull out more cash for these big wigs while they tell the faculty they can't get raises. Will Dr. Broad be occupying a position that would otherwise be held by another professor?
It does seem like there's a
It does seem like there's a different set of rules for the big wigs.
But, Ruby, I'm confused by the comment you made about faculty being more interested in publishing... I'm missing the connection between the issues. Also, I'm not sure it's faculty interests that push the publishing. There is a glut of PhDs in the Humanities, and getting a tenure-track position, never mind tenure, is incredibly competitive. Publications are an important part of the tenure review for most faculty. If they didn't work to research and publish, they wouldn't be able to teach at all.
I'm not saying it's right this way; the system is screwed up. But I'm not sure the faculty have much say in the matter. There are plenty of talented academics who would love to work at UNC if other folks can't keep up with their research.
Good point, Joan. I don't
Good point, Joan. I don't blame the professors, but the system is not very student-centric, and I think it should be.
Ruby, you're on to something
Ruby, you're on to something here,
and it permeates education. Both UNC
and our public K-12 school system spend
more and more bucks on outside-of-class
things and personnel, while doing very
little for the people who do the teaching
and who interact the most frequently
with the students.
My two stepsons did K-12 in the
Chapel Hill-Carrboro system. They came
home after school and raved about their
teachers. However, never once did I
hear them say "Wow, we have an
awesome west
facade on our building", or "Man, our
assistant superindendant for
support servies is really cool". I'm hardly
an expert on school finances, but our
school funding and consequent
property tax increases seem to be badly
mis-appropriated. If the really large
tax increases were going into the
salaries of the teachers,
and I mean the real teachers, I wouldn't
complain, but it's not, so I do.
At UNC, reducing the emphasis on
undergrad teaching continues at an
accelerated pace. Here's an interesting
stat based on a N&O study a few
years ago (Unfortunately I'm working
from memory, but I'll bet Jane Stancil
could cite it). Only 40 pct of the
classes taken by an undergrad student
at UNC-CH and NCSU are taught by
tenure-track or tenured faculty. Believe
me, the lecturers, instructors, and
grad teaching assistants who teach the
majority of the students are getting
neither good salaries nor good raises.
Funding for higher ed works
Funding for higher ed works very differently from K12 funding. For one thing, higher ed funding comes directly from the state legislature. Generally, graduate/research faculty bring in a big part of the money needed to fund undergraduate programs. It's a coup to get Broad. Her name and expertise should bring opportunities for additional funding which will benefit all university programs.
For the past several years, higher ed has been faced with a radically different funding formula, and individual institutions such as UNC-CH are still struggling to figure out how they work with smaller operational budget allocations from the state legislature. Basically, these allocation changes are going to require that institutions become more entrepreneurial. I'm assuming that's the background intent behind Carolina North. Hiring high profile faculty/researchers such as Broad is another part of the strategy.