Susan Herbst just got a BiG time extension

[UConn9604]

What did she do to take us from good to great?

And why were we good when she took over but great now?

It's the whole attitude she has that is helping to take us from very good to great. For example, take a look at how our communications profile has changed. When was the last time you saw us exploit the Husky dog for all aspects of the University, make videos and presentations and press releases, post advertisements on the subway in Washington and in the New York Times, etc., the way we are now? She's rebranded the University in a way that was long overdue. Plus, the faculty we're hiring - not just the numbers, but the quality - are really, really top notch.

I had no problem with Hartley, who rowed a lifeboat for as long as possible until the State finally turned around and started paying attention to us, and I thought Austin did a very, very good job (and never cared for Hogan, so I wasn't disappointed to see him leave), but by the time she's done, Herbst is going to rank up there with Homer Babbidge as among the best Presidents we've ever had. (That's my prediction, anyhow.)

As for the amount and timing of her raise, I wonder how many of the legislators who are griping now sat idly by while the Governor's no-layoff promise stopped us from realizing $40-70 million in savings?

http://www.raisinghale.com/2013/08/13/malloys-no-layoff-agreement-savings-uconn/

 

[temery]

I too read her Wikipedia page. I'm ok with her raise, mostly because she and her husband donated $100,000 to the UConn Foundation. She's done a very good job - give her some of her cash back.

As a rule, I am always suspicious of the attitude that leadership is irreplaceable.

 

[UConn9604]

I too read her Wikipedia page. I'm ok with her raise, mostly because she and her husband donated $100,000 to the UConn Foundation. She's done a very good job - give her some of her cash back.

As a rule, I am always suspicious of the attitude that leadership is irreplaceable.

Without question. That said, sometimes when you've lose a Randy Edsall, you end up with a Paul Pasqualoni. (Pardon me while I throw up on myself.)

 

[temery]

Without question. That said, sometimes when you've lose a Randy Edsall, you end up with a Paul Pasqualoni. (Pardon me while I throw up on myself.)

My guess is both made more that the University President.

 

[zls44]

Susan Herbst isn't irreplaceable, but she's as close as you can get. UConn had fallen victim to a problem that you see at a lot of higher institutions, people being kept around way too long for any sort of forward-thinking change. At a university that needed to play catch-up on basic things like the endowment being more than A-Rod's salary, those problems are extra-crippling.

As Fishy detailed above, she has been making proactive moves since day 1- clearing out dead weight was one necessary move, but for her to not just have the school sit on its growing laurels and make moves when EVERYBODY was shrinking was brilliant. Jackson, STEM, etc.- we all care about the sports stuff, but what she's doing with the university reminds me of the position Southwest Airlines was in with their airline fuel deals in the early 2000's. This stuff is going to pay off in a big way over the next two decades, no matter what conference UConn is in.

She zigs when everyone zags and the university is lucky to have her. They could have tripled her pay and I'd still say she's underpaid.

 

[jdb50]

Two things, take a ride by the UCONN Health Center. Blows your mind. On a small level but it speaks to the attention to detail, the Campus has never looked better. The landscaping, work being done to keep things up, is noticeable and speaks to someone who is well aware that folks will coast if not pushed, especially State workers. To borrow from the Patton movie it's like when he showed up in North Africa and everyone was letting things slip. We are lucky. Susan came along at the time when she was needed most.

 

[The Viking]

FWIW, back in July the Huffington Post came up with it's own list of salaries for the 93 presidents at public colleges that make more than Obama.
Herbst was 62nd on the list.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/college-presidents-make-paid-million_n_5381836.html

I think this state will survive her raise. And I'm sure the size of the thread titled "Herbst leaves UConn for ____________ would be a lot longer than 4 pages that this one currently is.

 

[temery]

FWIW, back in July the Huffington Post came up with it's own list of salaries for the 93 presidents at public colleges that make more than Obama.
Herbst was 62nd on the list.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/college-presidents-make-paid-million_n_5381836.html

I think this state will survive her raise. And I'm sure the size of the thread titled "Herbst leaves UConn for ____________ would be a lot longer than 4 pages that this one currently is.

I was kind of surprised at her pay - I figured she made much more. UMass has several at the top making more than Herbst.

 

[whaler11]

Impossible to argue what she has done and this raise isn't even a blip, she is still well underpaid.

Only concern I have is that at times I get the feeling that she pays lip service towards conference realignment and doesn't actually care if the programs are saved.

 

[Fishy]

Her raise is a non-story.

She's earned it twice over and it's human nature to bitch when someone else gets so much as an extra dime.

Life on the internet.

 

[UConnDan97]

FWIW, back in July the Huffington Post came up with it's own list of salaries for the 93 presidents at public colleges that make more than Obama.
Herbst was 62nd on the list.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/07/02/college-presidents-make-paid-million_n_5381836.html

I think this state will survive her raise. And I'm sure the size of the thread titled "Herbst leaves UConn for ____________ would be a lot longer than 4 pages that this one currently is.

Thanks for finding this list, Viking. So she has now moved into 21st place with the raise. We are ranked 19th as a public university, so it sounds like her pay is about in line with what it should be. If I'm Larry McHugh, I would be out in the media presenting this story with this information in hand. I still stand by my comment that something needs to be done to stem the tide of the large increases in UConn's tuition, despite what some might say about its affordability versus private schools. I look forward to seeing the solutions to the problem, because it is indeed a problem...

 

[temery]

Thanks for finding this list, Viking. So she has now moved into 21st place with the raise. We are ranked 19th as a public university, so it sounds like her pay is about in line with what it should be. If I'm Larry McHugh, I would be out in the media presenting this story with this information in hand. I still stand by my comment that something needs to be done to stem the tide of the large increases in UConn's tuition, despite what some might say about its affordability versus private schools. I look forward to seeing the solutions to the problem, because it is indeed a problem...

The list is six months old. She likely hasn't moved up much. I know the UMass president now makes closer to $700k.

 

[UConnDan97]

The list is six months old. She likely hasn't moved up much. I know the UMass president now makes closer to $700k.

Well, that means she's ahead of the UMass president, and for her not to be in the mid 20's would mean that those currently in the mid to high 20's would have had to have received over a 10% raise (such as Genshaft from USF). I'm feeling pretty confident in her position in the 20's currently...

 

[temery]

Herbst seems to be the exception. Not because she's been outstanding (and she may very well have been), but because she's been very good, and well underpaid.

With that said - I do have concerns there will soon come a day when the state realizes it cannot afford all these initiatives.

 

[Fishy]

The list is six months old. She likely hasn't moved up much. I know the UMass president now makes closer to $700k.

And he's leaving for a better gig.

I'm sure there are people in the UMass med system making more than the UMass prez and Herbst, but that's not really apples to apples. There's non-taxpayer funds involved in all this as well.

 

[temery]

And he's leaving for a better gig.

I'm sure there are people in the UMass med system making more than the UMass prez and Herbst, but that's not really apples to apples. There's non-taxpayer funds involved in all this as well.

There are tenured professors (grant funded) at UMass making more than the President. The same is likely true at most universities.

 

[UConn9604]

There are tenured professors (grant funded) at UMass making more than the President. The same is likely true at most universities.

Including ours - this is an old list, and the top has obviously changed, but there were five employees at the Health Center alone who made more than Herbst as of last winter:

http://www.yankeeinstitute.org/2014/02/malloy-the-1379th-highest-paid-state-employee/

 

[CL82]

An addendum to my previous post:

I tried to find a list of the highest salaries for public institutions. It's a hard list to come by, oddly enough. All I can do is throw certain pieces together from the web. But it seems at first glance that she is definitely in the top tier in terms of both base pay and total compensation. Those making larger salaries seem to be concentrated in the B1G, where student populations are much larger than ours. Also, the data that I could find about presidents making as much or more than President Herbst all seem to be at schools that rank slightly higher than ours on the USNews list, for whatever that's worth:

http://www.pennlive.com/midstate/index.ssf/2014/02/eric_barrons_compensation_will.html
http://www.ips-dc.org/one_percent_universities/
http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandr...ges/rankings/national-universities/top-public

Her salary now surpasses the University of Washington's president in both base and total compensation:

http://seattletimes.com/html/localnews/2020974831_universitypayxml.html

Here's an interesting quote from one of the links:

"This argument is also dubious. In FY 2012, for instance, the presidents of some of the nation’s largest, most respected public research universities – the University of California-Berkeley, the University of Wisconsin- Madison, the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, and the University of Massachusetts-Amherst – each made less than $500,000 in annual total compensation. Our analysis suggests that executive compensation packages awarded between FY 2006 and FY 2012 in excess of $600,000 per year (nominal or 2012 dollars) were inflated well above “market value.”"

Although all of this data seems to point to President Herbst being in the top tier of the pay scale for public universities nationally, it doesn't seem that her salary is so far outside the average as to be seen as overly excessive. I feel less strongly about the raise today than I did yesterday, that's for sure.

Hopefully, she can help figure out how to mitigate the 6.5% increase in student costs in the very near future...

Here's the thing Dan is she being paid disproportionately higher than her predecessors? Because Susan is the best we've seen here. We've seen what one bad hire can do to a football program, what one bad hire can do an athletic department. Imagine that application of the peter principal applied to an entire university. I'm happy to pay her because she brings value, and brings it at a time that it is sorely needed.

 

[CL82]

Surely you are not talking about recent history, Fishy. (this should precipitate a response of, "Yes I am, and don't call me Shirley.")

I have 4.4 billion reasons to suggest that it isn't true:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/University_of_Connecticut

In 1995, a state-funded program called UConn 2000 was passed by the Connecticut General Assembly and signed into law by then-Gov. John G. Rowland. This 10-year program set aside $1 billion to upgrade campus facilities, add faculty, and otherwise improve the university. An additional $1.3 billion was pledged by the State of Connecticut in 2002 as part of a new 10-year improvement plan known as 21st Century UConn.

http://ctmirror.org/21-billion-plan-uconn-moves-forward/

"A $2.1 billion plan for UConn moves forward"
“This is one of the largest investments any of us are ever going to vote on in our entire legislative careers,” Sen. Gary LeBeau, the chairman of the legislature’s Commerce Committee, said before the Senate voted on the initiative earlier this week. “It’s about providing the future for the state of Connecticut… This is going to transform us.”

The first $2.3B was for long deferred capital expenditures. This number would have been lower had we been paying as we went along. The remaining $2.3B is the STEM biotech initiative which, hopefully, will generate a new core industry for the state to replace waning defense spending. I'd much rather be investing at the university than giving ESPN a few more million.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Remember this from 2013, piture showingthe highest paid state employee by state. A bit outdated, for example, I am sure that Michigan's highest paid employee is now U of M's football coach (Harbaugh) and not Michigan St's basketball coach (Izzo); but it still drives home the point.

http://deadspin.com/infographic-is-your-states-highest-paid-employee-a-co-489635228

Graph also shows which states play major college sports and which do not, such as of New England except Connecticut, New York, the Dakotas, etc . The funniest, in my opinion is Nevada whose highest paid employee is a Plastic Surgeon at a medical schools (assuming UNLV). Good to see where their priorities lie.

 

[UConnDan97]

I'd much rather be investing at the university than giving ESPN a few more million.

Amen to that!

As far as her payment relative to her predecessors, she is making more than any of them. But I don't have a problem with that on principle, since pay should typically increase over time. I'm going to bow out of the conversation now, since I've only ever had 1 concern with the pay increase, and that concern cannot be addressed here anyways. It can only be addressed by President Herbst, the BOT, and the legislature / governor. But yes...dear God yes...I'd rather spend money on UConn than on ESPN!!!

 

[lne001]

The funniest, in my opinion is Nevada whose highest paid employee is a Plastic Surgeon at a medical schools (assuming UNLV). Good to see where their priorities lie.

Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the "correction" or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, plastic surgery is not necessarily cosmetic; and includes many types of reconstructive surgery, Craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. Wikipedia, natch. Not so funny in that context.

 

[DarthGrumpy]

Plastic surgery is a medical specialty concerned with the "correction" or restoration of form and function. Though cosmetic or aesthetic surgery is the best-known kind of plastic surgery, plastic surgery is not necessarily cosmetic; and includes many types of reconstructive surgery, Craniofacial surgery, hand surgery, microsurgery, and the treatment of burns. Wikipedia, natch. Not so funny in that context.

No disrespectwa s meant towards reconstructive surgeons who help people, like a cousin of mine whohad half his face taken off in a motorcycle accident or several women in my family who had reconstructive surgery after a mastectomy.

http://watchdogwire.com/nevada/2013/05/22/release-of-government-employee-salaries-shows-recession/

"Nevada is unusual in that a university football or basketball coach is not the highest-paid state employee. That honor goes to William Zamboni, a surgeon and professor at the UNR School of Medicine, who collected more than $1.1 million in base pay alone last year."

And now his bio

http://medicine.nevada.edu/directory/william-Zamboni

"Dr. William Zamboni is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Chief of the division of Plastic Surgery at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He completed residency training at Southern Illinois University in general and plastic surgery and is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Zamboni maintains a busy clinical practice. His areas of expertise include facial rejuvenation with the latest techniques in face lifting, eyelid surgery and injectables including fat grafting. Other specialized areas include cosmetic and reconstructive surgery of the breast and general plastic surgery. Dr. Zamboni has over 100 published articles and book chapters in the area of plastic surgery and has received numerous awards and honors for his career accomplishments."

 

[lne001]

http://medicine.nevada.edu/directory/william-Zamboni

"Dr. William Zamboni is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Chief of the division of Plastic Surgery at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He completed residency training at Southern Illinois University in general and plastic surgery and is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Zamboni maintains a busy clinical practice. His areas of expertise include facial rejuvenation with the latest techniques in face lifting, eyelid surgery and injectables including fat grafting. Other specialized areas include cosmetic and reconstructive surgery of the breast and general plastic surgery. Dr. Zamboni has over 100 published articles and book chapters in the area of plastic surgery and has received numerous awards and honors for his career accomplishments."

Excellent research Mr. Conehead, gave me a good laugh. Let's hope some of his students use their expertise for truly worthwhile endeavors.

 

[pj]

http://medicine.nevada.edu/directory/william-Zamboni

"Dr. William Zamboni is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Surgery and Chief of the division of Plastic Surgery at the University of Nevada School of Medicine. He completed residency training at Southern Illinois University in general and plastic surgery and is board certified by the American Board of Plastic Surgery. In addition to teaching and research, Dr. Zamboni maintains a busy clinical practice. His areas of expertise include facial rejuvenation with the latest techniques in face lifting, eyelid surgery and injectables including fat grafting. Other specialized areas include cosmetic and reconstructive surgery of the breast and general plastic surgery. Dr. Zamboni has over 100 published articles and book chapters in the area of plastic surgery and has received numerous awards and honors for his career accomplishments."

Remarkable that he finds time to clean hockey rinks too.