At an institution as large as the University of Minnesota, more than $1 billion is handed out in paychecks every year. With a grim financial forecast, those dollars have come under the scrutiny of the University as it desperately looks for ways to cut costs.
The Minnesota Daily looked at University employee salary data for fiscal year 2009 to find out who made the most money and how the paychecks of top administrators and faculty compared across departments.
Almost all of the top administrators and faculty at the University made more than the average employee in the same position in colleges across the country.
Most academic deans at the University took home upwards of $100,000 in total earnings last year with little disparity between them and the average salary of faculty members serving within their respective departments.
Faculty and deans in the Carlson School of Management received, on average, the highest total earnings among the University’s undergraduate, graduate and professional colleges.
Highest paid U employees
Methodology: The Minnesota Daily ranked the 10 highest paid employees at the University by their contracted salary, but also included each employee’s actual total earnings, which included regular and overtime earnings. Each University employee’s salary is compared to the average salary for employees in the same position in colleges across the nation. The average institutional salary for head coaches was calculated by taking the average men’s and women’s 2009 coaching salaries – provided by the NCAA – of more than 25 Division I-A schools with similar sized undergraduate classes as the University. Other University employee salaries are compared to the median institutional salaries for employees in the same position, according to the Chronicle of Higher Education. Some employee’s actual total earnings were lower than their contracted salary for fiscal year 2009. The reason for this could be if an employee worked only part of the year, took leave or were on partial appointment, according to University News Service.
Tubby Smith
Head Basketball Coach
Salary: $630,000
Actual Total Earnings: $1,783,150
Average Institutional Salary per Head Coach: $527,588
Background: Smith became the 16th head coach of the Gophers Men’s Basketball program in 2007. Prior to his time in Minnesota, Smith claimed a national title with the University of Kentucky and helped coach the gold-medal winning 2000 U.S. Olympic basketball team in Sydney. Smith is on the NCAA Committee to study basketball issues.
Alison Davis-Blake
Dean of Carlson School of Management
Salary: $477,000
Actual Total Earnings: $478,560
Median Institutional Salary: $249,372
Background: Davis-Blake became the 11th dean of the Carlson School of Management in 2006. She spent most of her academic career at the University of Texas-Austin’s McCombs School of Business, where she was senior associate dean for academic affairs. Davis-Blake received her bachelor’s and master’s degrees from Brigham Young University, and her doctorate from Stanford University’s Graduate School of Business.
Bob Bruininks
President of the University
Salary: $455,000
Actual Total Earnings: $455,000
Median Institutional Salary: $410,000
Background: Bruininks became the 15th president of the University in 2002. Before taking the University’s top spot, Bruininks served the University as a professor, dean and executive vice president and provost for about 40 years. In 2007, Bruininks joined the NCAA Division I Board of Directors and was named Executive of the Year by the Minneapolis St. Paul Business Journal in 2009. He was also voted Minnesotan of the Year by Minnesota Monthly in 2004. He earned his Bachelor of Arts from Western Michigan University, and a doctorate in philosophy from Vanderbilt University’s Peabody College.
Frank Cerra
Senior Vice President for Health Sciences and Dean of the Medical School
Salary: $439,570
Actual Total Earnings: $485,003
Median Institutional Salary: $384,600
Background: Cerra came to the University in 1981 as director of surgical critical care. In 2009, Cerra was appointed dean of the Medical School in addition to his role as senior vice president for health sciences. Cerra leads the University’s Academic Health Center, which encompasses the schools of dentistry, medicine, nursing, pharmacy, public health and veterinary medicine. Cerra received his bachelor’s degree in biology from the State University of New York at Binghamton, and his master’s degree from Northwestern University.
Tim Brewster
Head Football Coach
Salary: $408,000
Actual Total Earnings: $ 850,640
Average Institutional Salary per Head Coach: $527,588
Background: Brewster was named Minnesota’s 26th head football coach in 2007 after spending the previous five seasons as an assistant coach in the National Football League, including the 2005 and 2006 seasons as the tight ends coach for the Denver Broncos.
David Wippman
Dean of the Law School
Salary: $385,000
Actual Total Earnings: $364,259
Median Institutional Salary: $276,897
Background: Wippman became dean of the University Law School in 2008 after spending time as a professor and associate dean at Cornell Law School. Wippman received his bachelor’s degree from Princeton University and h is master’s degree from Yale University.
L. Steven Goldstein
CEO of the University of Minnesota Foundation
Salary: $350,000
Actual Total Earnings: $365,568
Median Institutional Salary: $98,029
Background: Goldstein became president and CEO of the University of Minnesota Foundation in 2008 after spending almost a decade as a trustee at the foundation and vice president of strategic initiatives. Goldstein graduated from the University with a bachelor’s degree in history. Goldstein became chairman of Internet Broadcasting in 1997, a national network of television Web sites which partners with Hearst Corporation, the Washington Post, Newsweek and CNN.
Patrick Kehoe
Professor of International Economics
Salary: $342,691
Actual Total Earnings: $229,603
Median Institutional Salary: $81,818
Background: Kehoe teaches economics at the University, with a focus on international trade and finance. Kehoe holds a Paul Frenzel Land Grant Chair in Economics and is currently the monetary adviser for the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. Kehoe received his doctorate from Harvard University and his bachelor’s in mathematics and Russian from Providence College.
Tom Sullivan
Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost
Salary: $340,750
Actual Total Earnings: $346,310
Median Institutional Salary: $262,000
Background: Sullivan was named senior vice president for Academic Affairs and provost of the University in 2004. Previously, Sullivan was the dean of the University Law School from 1995 to 2002. Sullivan served for six years as the dean of the University of Arizona law school, and as associate dean at Washington University in St. Louis. Sullivan graduated from Indiana University.
Joel Maturi
Athletics Director
Salary: $336,250
Actual Total Earnings: $378,019
Median Institutional Salary: $193,762
Background: Maturi was named the University’s athletics director in 2002. Prior to his arrival, Maturi was athletics director at Miami University in Ohio and the University of Denver. Maturi received a bachelor’s degree in government from the University of Notre Dame and a master’s degree from the University of Wisconsin-Platteville.
Faculty versus administration
Methodology: Using University of Minnesota salary data acquired by the Minnesota Daily, the following compares actual total earnings of top administrators and faculty members in 2009, including the president, vice presidents, vice provosts and deans. Both part-time and full-time professors were counted as faculty, but those who were paid hourly or in lump sums, rather than a set salary, were not included.
Positions filled by a single individual, such as the president, senior vice presidents and deans, are recorded as the whole. The average total earnings were calculated for the positions whose general titles were held by multiple individuals, such as associate vice presidents, associate deans and professors. Those figures were rounded to the nearest dollar.
Hierarchy –
Bob Bruininks, President, $455,000
Tom Sullivan, Senior Vice President for Academic Affairs and Provost, $346,310
Frank Cerra, Senior Vice President for Health Sciences, $485,003
Robert Jones, Senior Vice President for System Academic Administration, $285,560
Chancellors of the four University coordinate campuses, on average, receive $221,448 per year.
(10) Vice Presidents, $245,217
(21) Associate Vice Presidents, $194,578
(9) Assistant Vice Presidents, $212,020
(5) Vice Provosts, $154,786
(2) Associate Vice Provosts, $137,552
(2) Assistant Vice Provosts, $141,305
Law School, 182 employed
• David Wippman, Dean, $364,259
• (2) Assistant Deans: $115,500
• (48) Faculty: $192,778
College of Design, 222 employed
• Thomas Fisher, Dean, $202,260
• (2) Associate Deans: $142,005
• (1) Assistant Dean: $100,188
• (59) Faculty: $76,780
Carlson School of Management, 403 employed
• Alison Davis-Blake, Dean, $478,560
• (4) Associate Deans: $306,623
• (6) Assistant Deans: $170,992
• (96) Faculty: $194,799
College of Liberal Arts, 1,483 employed
• James Parente, Dean, $238,776
• (4) Associate Deans: $167,320
• (3) Assistant Deans: $100,225
• (581) Faculty: $92,898
Medical School, 2,539 employed
• Deborah Powell, Former Dean, $427,780
• (15) Associate Deans: $234,136
• (920) Faculty: $96,375
College rank –
Rank of average total earnings of faculty in undergraduate colleges:
Carlson School of Management, 96 faculty, $194,799
Institute of Technology, 414 faculty, $127,588
College of Education and Human Development, 186 faculty, $104,420
College of Food, Agricultural and Natural Resources Sciences, 270 faculty, $103,701
College of Biological Sciences, 92 faculty, $102,579
College of Liberal Arts, 581 faculty, $92,898
College of Design, 76 faculty, $76,780
Rank of average total earnings of faculty in graduate and professional programs:
Law School, 48 faculty, $192,778
School of Public Health, 128 faculty, $127,537
Hubert H. Humphrey Institute of Public Affairs, 28 faculty, $126,497
College of Veterinary Medicine, 71 faculty, $119,678
College of Pharmacy, 84 faculty, $109,743
Medical School, 920 faculty, $96,375
School of Nursing, 65 faculty, $82,815
School of Dentistry, 207 faculty, $58,249
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