The Post’s executive editors respond to Ohio University President Roderick McDavis’ increase in raise.
Ohio University will now spend even more money on its president after OU’s Board of Trustees approved an increase in base salary and a bonus at its meeting Thursday.
OU President Roderick McDavis will now be making $570,000 during the 2015-16 academic year, which includes base pay and a $90,000 bonus — an increase of $15,000 from the previous year. McDavis is the longest-serving president at any public university in Ohio and has received numerous pay raises in recent years.
McDavis’ wife, Deborah, also received a raise of $1,150, bringing her total salary to $36,150.
The announcement was made minutes before the 5 p.m. closing time for university offices, leaving reporters wanting comment from officials stuck in several rolls of red tape.
Though McDavis has received multiple raises, he has a track record of donating portions of his salary back to the university, his alma mater.
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In 2011, Kent State University’s student media outlet, Kent Wired, created a report of college presidents in Ohio and the amount they donate back to their respective institutions. In that story, it was reported that McDavis had donated $73,070 in total from his then-accumulated salary of $2,123,451. The percentage of his base salary donated was 3.44, placing McDavis, at the time, behind Gordon Gee of Ohio State University and Carol Cartwright of Bowling Green State University, whose percentage donated were 20.5 and 4.35, respectively.
The numbers used as data were McDavis’ salaries from 2006-2011.
In that report, McDavis was quoted as saying, “If I am asking other people to contribute to different causes within the university, then I think I ought to be an example by contributing those funds myself.”
Though it is great that McDavis feels so strongly about donating part of his salary back to the university, allocating those funds directly to the people that are most hungry for them — like the many OU students that are thousands of dollars in debt — is what any donor, McDavis or otherwise, should be concerned about.
Tuition at OU is currently $10,536 for in-state students each year, excluding fees. That rate is for students taking 12-20 credit hours per semester.
That means that McDavis’ total raise and bonus could pay the tuition for about nine in-state OU students.
There are better uses for money on this campus than padding what’s already one of the largest paychecks OU writes.
Editorials represent the majority opinion of The Post's executive editors: Editor-in-Chief Emma Ockerman, Managing Editor Rebekah Barnes, Opinion Editor Will Gibbs and Digital Managing Editor Samuel Howard. Post editorials are independent of the publication's news coverage.
