The Ivory Money Tower

Dang, if we'd known you could make that much money in academia, we'd've studied harder for the GREs! The UC faces yet another embarrassment, as it now comes out that in the wake of tuition increases and department cutbacks, the academic admin staff is routinely pulling down salaries of over $300,000 -- to do nothing.

Former Cal chancellor Robert Berdahl got an annual salary of $315,000 for a 13 month leave, provost MRC Greenwood is on a 15 month leave at a $301,840 salary, and the former head of the Lawrence Berkeley labs is finishing up a one-year leave at $336,000. This is all despite the fact that the UC put a policy in place against this back in 1994. The Regents explain that these folks are taking their leaves as administrators before they return to teaching -- because in part their salaries are significantly lower as mere professors ($130,000 for Berdahl, for instance), and these faculty members say they've been using the time off to work on books and lectures.

The UC's been having a hard time explaining their pay practices lately -- the Chron's also uncovered evidence that as part of a lawsuit settlement, another administrator from Davis is receiving $200,000+ with no official job duties, and all administrators got 3% merit pay raises, as tuition goes up 8-10%. They've called in an outside auditor.