Michael Crow

Regents expected to confirm Columbia vice provost as president at Friday meeting

The Arizona Board of Regents has offered a salary package to the man it hopes will be ASU's next president, and board officials expect he will accept it by tomorrow.

Regents could not comment on the details of the package that was offered to Michael Crow, the executive vice provost at Columbia University, but board president Kay McKay said it was more than the $320,000 total compensation of current president Lattie Coor, who is retiring June 30.

Board of regents spokesman Matt Ortega said the compensation package would be "significant."

Crow will likely accept the offer and be confirmed Friday at a special regents meeting, McKay said.

"Everything's very positive," she said. "I don't see anything that would derail it."

Crow has been the only candidate for the job since Karen Holbrook, the University of Georgia's provost, dropped out of the race March 12 after visiting the ASU campus.

He was expected to be offered the position nearly two weeks ago, but Ortega said the offer was delayed because Crow was in England all last week.

"It was extraordinarily difficult to have any sort of negotiations with him when he was out of the country," Ortega said.

If he accepts the offer, McKay said she believes Crow will be taking a pay cut from his job at Columbia.

Although Crow has not revealed his salary at Columbia, the Chronicle of Higher Education reports that the university's president received a nearly $525,000 salary in 1999-2000, more than double Coor's and University of Arizona President Peter Likins' salaries of about $225,000.

Coor's and Likins' salaries are augmented by compensation packages that include payments into a retirement plan, a $46,000 annual housing allowance and an $8,700 car allowance.

McKay said the package offered to Crow includes funding from the ASU Foundation, and marks the first time an Arizona university president has been compensated with funding other than from the state.

The need for outside sources comes as a result of rapidly rising salaries of university presidents across the country, McKay said.

She rejected the notion that the incoming president's salary should be kept low because of statewide budget cuts, calling it an "apples and oranges comparison."

She said that universities need to offer competitive salaries to lure the best presidential candidates.

"The entire situation with university presidents has changed dramatically in the last 18 months," McKay said. "They're asking for and getting bigger salaries."

"There are different kinds of funding coming into play."

Ortega and McKay both expect Likins' compensation package, along with that of Northern Arizona University'sPresident John Haeger, to be increased so they fall in line with Crow's.

ASU and UA presidents have traditionally had similar salaries, with NAU's slightly lower, Ortega said.

He said it would be "non-competitive" to pay ASU and UA's president's significantly different amounts.

Likins' contract is up for re-negotiation this summer.