Presidential Payday

First came a speech to more than 200 people at the grand opening of the school’s $12.4 million Roy D. Blunt Jordan Valley Innovation Center, followed by more than a half-dozen meetings, an after-hours Springfield Area Chamber of Commerce reception and other presidential duties.

For these and other efforts, Nietzel was awarded a contract extension two weeks earlier by the university’s board of governors. The extension adds a year to his contract, which now runs through 2011. It also gives him a retention bonus of $200,000 – versus $100,000 in his original contract – if he stays through June 30, 2009, and makes him eligible for an additional $50,000 per year if he stays through 2012.

Nietzel also will receive a standard 4 percent merit pay raise available to faculty and staff for the coming school year, bumping his salary to $257,088 from $247,200 effective July 1. That amount doesn’t include perks, such as Nietzel’s $45,000 annual housing allowance or use of a university-paid automobile “befitting a university president,” according to his contract.

“We realized that we had a good person with a great track record,” said MSU Board of Governors President Michael Franks. “That being the case, we felt that it was in the best interest of the university to try to lock that person in for a long-term stay.”

Nietzel was hired as the ninth president in MSU history in July 2005 after serving as provost at the University of Kentucky. Franks said the extension came after a “rather extensive” annual review of Nietzel’s performance thus far.

$300,000 club

More than $300,000 in total compensation is certainly a lot of money, but it’s reasonable compared to the pay of other university presidents, said board president Franks. National and regional numbers seem to bear out his perspective.

Washington, D.C.-based The Chronicle of Higher Education, a weekly industry newspaper, surveys university presidents annually and found in its most recent national survey, released in November, that the median compensation for presidents at public research universities was $374,846, a 4.1 percent increase from the previous year.

The survey found that 112 presidents had compensation exceeding $500,000, with University of Delaware President David Roselle’s $979,571 the highest salary. One private university president, Vanderbilt’s E. Gordon Gee, earned more than $1 million.

Six of the 10 institutions in the Missouri Valley Conference, including MSU, are public universities. Not counting Nietzel’s pay, the average salary of the public university presidents in the MVC was $256,091 last year. (See box below.)

Franks said Nietzel and other university presidents demand such high salaries because of their unique qualifications and immense responsibilities. Franks said Nietzel, for example, is responsible for a $250 million budget, more than 20,000 students and more than 2,000 employees on four campuses.

“That’s pretty much a town, if you think about it,” Franks said. “That, to me, is going to get you more than what you’re going to pay a mid-level sales executive.”

Nietzel declined to comment for this story, but his chief of staff, Paul Kincaid, said Nietzel is a tireless worker, devoting most of his time to fund-raising, financial management, and community and legislative relations.

“It’s a demanding job, but it’s a job that he enjoys very much and does a very good job at,” Kincaid said.

Among Nietzel’s accomplishments since taking the reins at MSU, he has:

• helped raise nearly $67 million to build an arena;

• helped grow the school’s endowment to $53.8 million from $40 million and added 11 endowed faculty positions;

• been elected to a two-year term as president of the Council on Public Higher Education;

• hired and retained head coaches for basketball and football teams; and

• overseen the development of JVIC.

The right mix

Jamie Ferrare, president of Washington, D.C.-based Academic Search Inc., helps colleges and universities find presidential candidates, annually working with about 70 institutions.

He said it’s hard to find a person with the right mix of skills and experience needed to be an effective university president.

“Some people are tremendous faculty members, yet weak administrators, and vice versa,” Ferrare said. “The secret to all this is to find that person who has not only the interest but the aptitude and the experience to do the job.”

Before John Keiser retired after 11 years as MSU president in June 2005, making $165,000 annually, Franks said the board reviewed about 60 candidates from what he called a shallow pool of qualified applicants. Nietzel emerged as the right choice then, and this contract extension reaffirms that, Franks said.

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