IU President Pamela Whitten was awarded a $162,500 bonus by the Board of Trustees for her second-year performance Indiana public media article obtained in a public records request. The bonus was approved unanimously by the board at their Aug. 24 meeting. The bonus is 25% of her $650,000 annual salary, the maximum allowed in Whitten's employment contract.
Trustee Jermey Morris admired and praised Whitten after approval of her bonus according to an Indiana public media article. , calling her, “The Beyoncé of higher education.”
Morris is up for election in June 2024. All IU degree holders can vote online or by paper here.
Whitten took over the role of president after IU president Michael McRobbie retired in June 2021, becoming thefirst female president in IU’s history.
In Whitten's first year, she presented the IU 2030 strategic plan with a special emphasis on research and creativity, student success and opportunity, and service to the state and beyond. Whitten announced a $30 million investment to recruit a more diverse faculty and researchers in Sep 2021.
At the end of Whitten’s first year, the IU and Purdue Board of Trustees announced their approval to dissolve Indiana University Purdue University in June 2023, separating it into two separate schools in June 2024.
The split has caused much confusion among faculty at IUPUI. Earlier this month, IUPUI’s faculty council wrote a letter to Whitten and the IU Board of Trustees criticizing them for making decisions without faculty consultation. The split posed a risk to tenure, according to the chronicle of higher education.
Michigan State University President Samuel Stanley Jr. became the highest-paid public university president in the Big 10 Conference after he accepted a reconstructed contract in October 2021 according to the Lansing State Journal. The MSU Board of Trustees approved a 20% increase in Stanley's $960,000 annual salary, raising it to $1,152,000.
According to the Purdue Exponent, Purdue University President Mung Chiang’s salary is $430,000, lower than his $619,094 salary as dean of engineering and executive vice president of strategic initiatives in 2022. In Chiang’s contract, he is set to receive an additional yearly pay increase of $50,000. Past president Mitch Daniels was paid $953,322 in his last term in 2022.
IU law professor Steve Sandars found that during the presidential search, the trustees rejected the four finalist candidates and found their own candidate, Whitten, in the last hours of the search according to the chronicle of higher education.
In 2021, Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition tried to organize a union for graduate employees of IU for what they call a lack of dignified working conditions including insupportable pay. In spring of 2022, Indiana Graduate Workers Coalition began its strike that lasted for four weeks. Whitten told Indiana public media the board of trustees did not believe that a graduate student union was not the right path for IU.
