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[kaysixteen]

I remember a chat I attended c. 1995, when in grad school-- the then-president of the university had come to address a grad student assembly wrt austerity changes that said uni was having to undergo in light of cutbacks in state aid attendant upon the recent election of a conservative GOP governor.  This man had received a $40k raise the year before, something he had been contractually entitled to because the new president of one of the sister state unis had been hired with a salary $40k greater than his own.  The guy was trying to spin the austerity measures we as students would have to deal with, including significant tuition increases and cuts in various programs and services, when one brave sot in the Q&A time asked him whether, in light of these developments, he would be willing to forego, at least temporarily, the automatic $40k raise-- you would have thought the kid had asked the guy to sacrifice his grandmother to Baal, because the guy seemed genuinely personally offended and hurt, and blathered on about how much he did, etc.  NO one listening was impressed, not that it mattered... a guy like this, if he felt himself undercompensated, which he did, well let's see how much money he would earn if he tried to get a comparable job in the private (non-academic) sector...

[busyslinky]

This is a great example of why they deserve the salary.  They are always under scrutiny and confronted not only on salary, but issues from the most mundane operational items, to the most strategic and long-term concerns facing the school.  I bet this confrontation with the students was one of the minor ones he faced that day.

[daniel_von_flanagan]

I am afraid I remain less than impressed by the notion that academic adminiscritters deserve such consideration, are put upon in their jobs, etc.... most seem like parasites.

I never said they deserved it, only that nobody would leave a faculty position for such a job without the financial incentive.

I completely agree that in times of financial trouble it is unseemly for an administrator to take a huge raise, but in this case he's actually taking a large cut (from his admin salary to a beefy faculty salary), and it sounds like you are asking him to take a further large cut, voluntarily.  That is a lot to ask of someone. - DvF

[kaysixteen]

Hmmm... the way I read the alumni literature we got sent, it actually appears that Fogel did not have a tenured position on the UVM faculty, but was given one as part of his post-presidency golden parachute... in any case, the job of English professor pays X, whereas uni president pays X+ ?-- if you give up your higher paying position to accept a lower-paying one, you make less money.

[spork]

This is a great example of why they deserve the salary.  They are always under scrutiny and confronted not only on salary, but issues from the most mundane operational items, to the most strategic and long-term concerns facing the school.  I bet this confrontation with the students was one of the minor ones he faced that day.

Replace "school" with "country" and delete "with the students" and you've got the President of the USA, who makes far less than most university presidents do.

Complicit in these compensation packages are university trustees or regents, who often let fiduciary and other responsibilities slide as they suck down drinks at the local country club on the university's tab.

[systeme_d_]

Yes, presidential salaries are incredibly inflated.  Coach salaries even more so.

But this sentence from the article caused even my jaded self to raise an eyebrow: 

Kahn-Fogel also has an ad hoc personal assistant, Leslie Logan, who earns slightly more than $66,000 a year in that role.

A part-time party planner and general-go-fer makes more money than I did as a tenured professor at another state institution.  Now that's messed up.

[fiona]

We have in our dept. several faculty who used to be administrators. They kept their salary increments, and I continue to believe they deserve higher salaries than I do.

No one's mentioned that most faculty salaries are for 9 months of on-the-job time, but administrators work all year round--in the time that us full profs could spend writing, traveling, improving our minds. They sacrifice family time, for instance, that can't ever be gotten back. They're subject to middle-of-the-night crisis calls, such as a sniper on campus. They have to deal with crazy legislators and infuriated parents.

The buck stops on them, not me, and once they return to an academic department, I think they deserve to continue the combat pay they got before. We're still paying them for their service to us and the university.

Also--someone who's been a top administrator is really not at the same level as an ordinary English professor. The recovering administrator knows much more about how the university works, and that knowledge helps us all in getting resources, getting listened to, getting smaller class sizes. The Ex-Admin has the ear of the current admin. The Ex-Admin is never again "just an English teacher."

I don't know anything except what I've read about the Vermont situation, but I do bristle at the idea that an Ex-Admin isn't worth a high salary. I would like to seize the football coach's salary, though, and distribute it to adjuncts everywhere.

The Fiona