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ACTA will soon release The Trustees Guide to Tough Economic Times with a number of strategies for boards. Some types of cost-control will, by nature, be difficult and painful, albeit unavoidable. Others, however, are self-evident, and their neglect will stink in the nostrils of students, parents and taxpayers. A case in point: the North Dakota state auditor found that two public universities violated capital project requirements in their remodeling of the president's house, citing among other violations, splitting the project into smaller units to avoid having to obtain Board approval. And this is hardly the first scandal of its type: they come in a wearying succession, and the ultimate victims are always students, when funds that might otherwise be used for libraries,labs,scholarships and faculty appointments are squandered. Trustees, regents, and higher education board members must never feel that their questions about expenditures are intrusive or inappropriate.
And so also regarding executive compensation. Earlier this year, the Chronicle of Higher Education noted that the median salary for a president at a public university is $436,000 and the number of presidents earning over $500,000 has increased in the past nine years almost ten-fold. Former AAUP president Jane Buck called this "unconscionably astronomical" and "unseemly." Indeed it is.
Posted by Michael Poliakoff on May 10, 2010 at May 10, 2010 05:22 PM
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