The University of California has drawn a lot of heat lately for what critics consider excessive compensation for some of its top executives. But none of UC’s acts of generosity seem to quite match the sweet deal that the University of Massachusetts awarded to a former chancellor of its medical school.

According to a joint report by the Worcester Telegram & Gazette and a local television station, CBS4, Leonard Laster received a $2-million severance package when he stepped down under fire, in 1990. The deal was contingent on his remaining an active academic, befitting the distinguished university professorship he held. But as the joint report found, Dr. Laster “did no teaching or substantive writing or research” in the following 12 years, until he retired in 2002. He also did not respond to requests for comment from reporters.

The university’s president, Jack M. Wilson, acknowledged on Wednesday that the deal would never have been approved nowadays, the Telegram reported, because of tighter controls over big paydays and closer scrutiny of idle academics. Speaking to the university’s Board of Trustees, Mr. Wilson also said Dr. Laster’s departure contract was so loosely written that there was nothing the university could do about it now—except promise that such a deal would never happen again.