[Updated (10/8/2013, 9:33 p.m.) with details on additional presidential gifts.]
Everyone loves to knock college presidents for drawing exorbitant salaries at a time when many students are struggling to pay tuition. On Tuesday the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, announced that she and her husband, Kenneth M. Coleman, would
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[Updated (10/8/2013, 9:33 p.m.) with details on additional presidential gifts.]
Everyone loves to knock college presidents for drawing exorbitant salaries at a time when many students are struggling to pay tuition. On Tuesday the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor’s president, Mary Sue Coleman, announced that she and her husband, Kenneth M. Coleman, would give something back: $1-million to support study-abroad scholarships for Michigan students.
To be sure, meeting their pledge won’t cause the Colemans to miss any meals. President Coleman was the sixth-highest-paid chief executive of a public institution in the 2012 fiscal year, with a total compensation of $918,783. The gift brings the couple’s total giving to $1.79-million during her 11 years at Michigan’s helm. She is set to retire in July.
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Ms. Coleman said in a statement announcing the gift that three months studying in Europe as an undergraduate “changed my outlook about myself and what I wanted to do with my life.”
The couple’s gift is part of the Victors for Michigan campaign, which will officially begin on November 8 and will place a priority on raising funds for student support.
President Coleman is not the only chief executive to give back to his or her own institution. Two years ago, Hampton University’s president, William R. Harvey, and his wife, Norma, pledged $1-million to raise faculty salaries. And the recent recession saw a wave of presidents returning bonuses to show their empathy. Among them: E. Gordon Gee gave $320,850 for scholarships at Ohio State University, and J. Bernard Machen gave the University of Florida $285,000 for the same cause.
In 2007 Chancellor Nancy Cantor and her husband, Steve Brechin, gave $1-million to Syracuse University, and in 2011 she made a joint $1-million gift to the university with her brother in memory of their mother. In 2011 Judy Genshaft, president of the University of South Florida, along with her husband, Steven Greenbaum, made a $1-million gift to her institution for study-abroad scholarships. And six years ago, David E. Shi, Furman University’s president, and Nido Qubein, president of High Point University, each made $1-million gifts to their institutions.
But President Coleman’s $1.79-million is the largest lifetime donation that we could quickly find from a college president to his or her institution. Can anyone top that?
