The IU Board of Trustees voted 8-1 Thursday to extend President Pamela Whitten’s contract five more years. Additionally, they gave her a 28% raise.
Whitten’s contract was slated to expire in June 2026. Now, she’ll serve as the 19th president of IU for five more years.
The trustees voted to extend Whitten’s contract to 2031 and raise her base salary to $900,000, according to Indiana Public Media. IU Executive Director of Media Relations Mark Bode confirmed those numbers and that the single vote against Whitten’s reappointment came from Vivian Winston.
Since Whitten began her presidency at IU in 2021, her actions have earned both votes of no confidence from faculty and praise for funding science and technology research.
According to Indiana Public Media, during the September 2024 Board of Trustees meeting, where the board approved Whitten’s $175,000 bonus, Trustee Cathy Langham recommended raising Whitten’s pay, citing the “key benchmarks” Whitten met, referencing the IU Innovates program, funding for the IU Foundation and improvements on the IU 2030 plan.
In April 2024, 93.1% of over 900 faculty members voted no confidence in Whitten.
This vote came alongside a slew of criticism about Whitten and the current IU administration’s handling of free speech and its response to pro-Palestinian encampments in Dunn Meadow on campus.
More recently, an independent law firm investigated Whitten for plagiarism due to copied language in her 1996 doctoral dissertation. The university said it found last August the “assertions” were meritless.
On Feb. 13, Whitten celebrated the IU Indianapolis campus earning Research 1 status from the Carnegie Classification of Institutions of Higher Education.
CORRECTION: This story has been updated to correct the percent increase in Whitten’s salary.
