A while back, matt wrote an excellent piece on the compensation packages of college presidents. Now, it seems, Shirley Ann Jackson’s presidential house is not large enough.
RPI has provided a residence for the Institute’s president since the 1930’s; the current abode dates back to 1971, and is roughly 4500 square feet. Even in the flailing real-estate market of Troy, NY, the property has an estimated value of over $1M. Now its going to be used as a guest house for visiting luminaries.
Granted, the article does state that the funds for the new prez’s house will be raised from donations, and not come out of the general fund. But still, to have received some pretty non-flattering public spotlight on your compensation package recently and still decide to move ahead with building a new mansion seems a little…ill timed?
“RPI’s Board of Trustees on Friday approved the building, which will be funded by personal donations from members of the board.”
The board of trustees is listed here:
http://www.rpi.edu/president/bot/index.html
I wonder how many of them head companies that do business with the college. I would tread lightly, Dr. Jackson — this has some serious conflict of interest written all over it.
Don’t worry, the new mansion will be for all the future presidents of RPI as well. That is, I mean, until _that_ one is too small.
I’ll do my own treading lightly here, and suggest simply that is the president of RPI were an older white male that the criticism levied against them in the recent past (a- for firing 100 employees, b- for their salary being higher than any other university president in the country, c- for building a new, larger president’s house) would be somewhat more clarion.
I’ve been continually dismayed by RPI since I graduated. First, they tried to “reinvent” themselves as a University, rather than a Polytechnic Institute (they moved away from use of the acronym “RPI” and began referring to themselves simply as “Renssalaer”; we all used to joke about “RU” becoming the new acronym. Plus, the curriculum became dilluted with sundry non-technical courses) and now it seems their focus has even moved away from the noble causes of higher education and science and engineering and more towards political and capitalistic ends.
There was much outcry a while back over CEOs of large corporations making 1000x more than their average employee. Now, it seems, Academia seems to have decided to give up criticizing and join the party.