WCBS NEWSRADIO 880 - New SUNY Provost to Get High Salary
New SUNY Provost to Get High Salary

ALBANY (AP) — The State University of New York board was scheduled Tuesday to hire a new provost at an annual salary of $300,000 plus $5,000 a month in living expenses, a SUNY official confirmed.

The Board of Trustees was to vote Tuesday on the hiring of Risa Palm as provost and chief academic officer of the public university system, said SUNY spokesman David Henahan. She will also get a car in the deal, he said.

Am I reading this correctly? $300,000 a year, plus a car and $5000 a month for living expenses? Is there any wonder why they are continuing to ask for higher state and county aid? With salaries and perks like these we are sure to go broke.

Palm has been the provost at the State University of Louisiana and before that worked at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She was chosen after a nationwide search and interviews by board members, Henahan said.

Henahan said he didn’t immediately know how much more she will make than her predecessor. The provost is a top administrator responsible for staffing, operations and management of academic affairs. That would include review of programs and assessments of student performance. In addition, she will take on university life and international programs, a growing area for SUNY, he said.

SUNY Trustee Aminy Audi, who heads the Executive Compensation and Personnel Committee, said Palm’s pay package is comparable to that offered by other public university systems.

She would replace Peter Salins, who has held the provost job since 1997. He will become a “university professor” on the SUNY campus at Stony Brook. The job is not filling a faculty slot, but rather is available to top SUNY administrators after five years of service. University professors can fashion their own job description to do research and teach in their areas of interest and expertise for as long as the he or she chooses, according to the SUNY contract with top administrators.

Salins was accepted by the Stony Brook faculty after a rigorous review, Henahan said. He will be paid $150,000 annually as a professor and receive a $55,000 stipend in each of three years as a university professor.

The SUNY Board is also scheduled to vote on hiring a new vice chancellor for community colleges. Dennis Golladay, who has been president of Cayuga County Community College, is to be paid $170,000 a year.