Akron may pay $400K for ex-presidents to teach

AKRON — The University of Akron will again pay more than $300,000 to former President Luis Proenza to teach this academic year while laying off other faculty and possibly dipping into reserves to offset millions of dollars in revenues lost to the coronavirus pandemic.

The university also might have to pay a second former president, Scott Scarborough, more than $112,000 to teach if the union representing some faculty prevails in a grievance contesting the elimination of Scarborough’s position and others.

Cleveland.com requested the payments to the former presidents this week, after current President Gary Miller disclosed to trustees that the school might need to draw as much as $32 million from reserves to meet expenses in the new academic year.

Records show that this academic year, the university paid the two men a total of nearly $600,000, or 65% of their presidential salaries as called for in contracts the men signed as president that included an option to teach after they’ve stepped down.

Prozena receives an additional $50,000 stipend from a chaired professorship which is funded by private donations and does not come out of the university’s general fund.

Proenza, who was president of UA from 1999 to 2014, made $391,445 for teaching in the school’s honors program last school, with university funds covering $341,445. He made the same amount for the 2018-19 school year, according to UA spokeswoman Cristine Boyd. He taught three colloquia totaling eight credit-hours in the fall, and three in the spring totaling nine credit-hours.

Boyd said she could not provide cleveland.com with the average salary for other employees fulfilling similar duties, saying there are no other positions at UA comparable to Proenza’s.

“The cross-disciplinary coursework he developed and delivers to students enrolled in the Williams Honors College utilizes his unique background and leadership experience as president emeritus with an emphasis on public policy and the role of higher education in the economy,” Boyd said.

Scarborough, who succeeded Proenza and served as president from 2014 to 2016, taught three accounting courses totaling nine credit-hours during both the fall and spring semesters. During fall 2019, his salary was still $307,285. Effective Jan. 1, 2020, his salary was reduced to $112,500. On Feb. 1, 2020, he received an additional $43,750 as a bonus.

Half of the previous salary, plus half of the current salary, plus the bonus comes out to $253,642.50. The year prior, he made $298,267. Salaries for full-time, nine-month professors in the Department of Accounting range from $112,500 to $188,803, Boyd said.

Another former UA president, Matthew Wilson, began as president of Missouri Western State University in July 2019, so he was not on the payroll for the 2019-20 academic year. After serving as president from 2016 to 2018, he taught at Akron’s School of Law for one year, netting him $240,500.

The university has been making deep cuts due to losses attributed to the coronavirus pandemic, including an expected 15% drop in enrollment and an 8.8% drop in state funding, Miller said last week.

In July, the Board of Trustees approved a proposed union contract with the Akron chapter of the American Association of University Professors, or AAUP, which called for 178 positions to be eliminated, including those of 96 unionized faculty. Earlier this month, the union narrowly rejected the contract, triggering an arbitration process that is expected to take place over the coming months.

The university has not released a list of employees whose positions were set to be eliminated, but a list posted by the AKRON-AAUP includes Scarborough.

If the union prevails in arbitration, the university would most likely have to reinstate the employees’ jobs, which could cost more than $8 million, Miller told trustees.

“Given the variability in revenue and expenses possible in the coming months, we caution the board that the draw on reserves could range from $7.8 million to as much as $32 million, which, as you know, would be a third of our reserve,” Miller said.

Boyd said there is about $83.5 million in unrestricted funds in the university’s reserves, of which $65 million is “readily available,” as of June 30, 2019, the most recent data available.