Big Pay, No Performance

by Donald K. Wedding, UT-AAUP Executive Board

One of the major reasons for merging the University of Toledo and the Medical University of Ohio was to improve research funding, particularly in the Health Sciences. (See "Hopes high for UT-MUO research", The Toledo Blade, June 18, 2006.) How has this worked out for us?

Below is a graph presented at the University of Toledo (UT) Faculty Senate on Tuesday, August 30, 2011 by Distinguished Professor Emeritus Al Compaan. Dr. Compaan was invited by Faculty Senate President Lawrence Anderson to provide background for a Faculty Senate citation honoring Dr. Frank Calzonetti, formerly Vice President for Research and Economic Development.

The data shows research funding for the Health Science Campus was almost flat from 2003 to 2009, remaining below $25 million a year until 2010 when it was approximately $28 million.  In comparison, the Bancroft Campus has had remarkable growth in annual research funding rising from about $20 million in 2001 when Dr. Calzonetti arrived to over $45 million in 2010.

The Health Science research funding is a small fraction of what other Ohio medical schools are receiving. For example, the University of Cincinnati (UC) received $169.5 million in 2010. UC was ranked #19 in NIH funding for all U.S. public medical schools and #42 for all U.S. medical schools. In 2010 The Ohio State University medical school received research funding in excess of $185 million. Case Western Reserve School of Medicine had $243.5 million in research funding for 2008. 

The purpose of this newsletter is not to tarnish the UT Health Science Campus which has a high quality and dedicated teaching faculty, but to show that President Lloyd Jacobs has done little to improve research funding at the Health Science Campus over the last 8 years. He pushed an ambitious research agenda to the UT Board of Trustees, the Port Authority, the Regional Growth Partnership, and to the politicians. But the hard data shows he has had little or no success with improving research funding at the UT Health Science Campus including the UT medical school (College of Medicine). As they say down in Texas, he wears a big hat, but has no cattle.

The UT Board of Trustees led by Chair Carroll Ashley says that Jacobs has done much, but they are short on specifics. In other critical areas besides Health Science research funding, the results of President Jacobs and his appointed administrators have been disappointing. UT enrollment and retention, morale of the faculty and staff on the campus, transparency of administration, academic program reviews, budget control including the collection and the disbursement of student fees and control of administrator salaries have also been problematic.

Based on data just released by the Jacobs Administration, the overall UT student retention rate is 65.2% for 2011, one of the lowest retention rates in Ohio if not the lowest. This means that UT loses 1/3 of its first year students. The retention rate was 69.7% in 2008, but has declined the last three years under the watch of President Jacobs.

The UT Board of Trustees has turned a blind eye to Jacobs' lack of performance and continues to reward him and his highly paid administrative team with high salaries and bonuses. Lloyd Jacobs is the second highest paid university president in Ohio, second only to Dr. Gordon Gee of Ohio State University who is the highest paid in the United States. The Board members might read Pay without Performance (The Unfulfilled Promise of Executive Compensation) by Lucian Bebchuk (Harvard University ) and Jesse Fried (University of California, Berkeley), Harvard University Press, 2004. The book notes the lack of correlation between CEO pay and performance. The book also notes how CEOs and boards mutually benefit. This is certainly true at UT where Jacobs is generously rewarded by the Board and where some Board members are appointed by Jacobs to high paying university positions as they exit the Board.

Big hat, no cattle;

big pay, no performance.