Salary of University of Wisconsin’s leader lags behind

Hundreds of thousands of dollars may not be enough to find an adequate replacement for the outgoing executive at the University of Wisconsin.

Chancellor John D. Wiley has an annual salary of $341,495, compared to the $905,000 Mark Emmert is earning as president at the other UW.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel specifically singled out Emmert in an article commenting on Wiley’s relatively low salary.

Emmert was earning $284,160 when the University of South Carolina tried to entice him to their school in 2002. Emmert, then the chancellor of Louisiana State University, received a pay raise to $590,000 in hopes that he would remain in Louisiana.

Instead, Emmert came to the University of Washington with an initial salary of $752,700 in 2004.

The position of an executive at a university requires “a set of criteria that Jesus on a good day couldn’t satisfy,” said Stephen Trachtenberg, a consultant with an executive search firm and former president of George Washington University in the Sentinel.

The university is quite worried it will not be able to find candidates willing to work such a demanding job for a $350,000 salary, in spite of the prestige attached to the job.

That UW, however, might not be ready to follow in the footsteps of this UW by increasing their president’s salary.

“We always have to be sensitive to the fact that this is state money, this is taxpayers’ money,” committee members said in the Sentinel.

Arizona residents denied in-state tuition

Nearly 4,000 Arizona students returned to school in 2008 to discover their tuition rates jumped to more than three times the amount they previously paid. They must now pay the out-of-state tuition rate in order to remain enrolled.

The spike in tuition for these select students comes among the ongoing debate over illegal immigration.

These 4,000 students were unable to verify their legal residency in Arizona and, accordingly, their tuition must be raised since they technically do not live in Arizona. They are also no longer eligible for state-sponsored financial aid.

The full impact of the new legislation has yet to be seen, as university and community college officials have found it hard to verify the exact reasons why students drop out.

Nonetheless, the legislation has proved to be controversial for some.

Paul Kohn, the University of Arizona’s vice provost for enrollment management, expressed his displeasure with the legislation in an article in Phoenix’s local paper, The Arizona Republic.

“It’s so contrary to wanting to cultivate an educated workforce,” he said.

The proposition passed by a wide margin in a border state where illegal immigration is a primary issue for those in government.

Some Republican state senators believe there are more students illegally attending Arizona colleges and that the estimate of 4,000 is “too low to be believable,” according to the Republic.

Clowns outraged at new study

Research from the University of Sheffield in England suggests clowns scare children rather than comfort them in hospitals. Clowns clamored about these findings to defend what they believe to be their innate good-natured humor.

Questions were put forth to 250 children, the majority of whom decided that images of clowns on hospital walls were frightening.

“We found that clowns are universally disliked by children,” said Penny Curtis, from the University of Sheffield, in a Republic article. “Some found them quite frightening and unknowable.”

Clown groups from around the world have rallied to the defense of their trade, producing anecdotal evidence of the joy they bring to sick children.

“The ‘universe’ of 250 children used for the Sheffield University study was miniscule compared to the 250,000 one-to-one bedside visits made by Clown Care to hospitalized children annually,” said Joel Dein, a representative from the Big Apple Circus.

The Clown Care program sends clowns to visit hospitals and employs nearly 100 professional clowns.

[Reach columnist Andrew Doughman at news@thedaily.washington.edu.]