Last year, North Carolinians gave Beverly Washington Jones six months of pay -- $104,000 -- as she left the provost's job at N.C. Central University so she could prepare for her return to the classroom.
Jones took the UNC system-sanctioned administrative leave at the same rate of pay she earned as NCCU's top academic officer. But she didn't return to the university. At the end of the six-month leave, she retired.
Jones, a Durham native and former Durham school board member, said recently that though she had intended to return to teaching, a research project became so consuming that she retired to devote all of her time to it. Neither NCCU Chancellor Charlie Nelms, who removed Jones from the position as he created a new Cabinet, nor UNC system officials could require Jones to come back as a history professor or to return the $104,000.
The "retreats right" policy under which Jones was paid as she prepared to teach again, is in broad use at North Carolina's 16 public universities, UNC records show. Over the past five years, taxpayers have paid about $8 million to 117 administrators who either returned to the faculty or left the university. In 24 cases, the payouts were for $100,000 or more.
A News & Observer review found that these agreements, along with other transitional payments, offered sizable sums of money with few or no strings attached, in at least three cases violated UNC system policies and in some cases rewarded administrators with as much as a year's salary for a job poorly done.
Jones' case stands out because she didn't return to teaching, but NCCU has used retreat rights twice, far less than most universities in the UNC system. UNC-Chapel Hill, for example, has rewarded more than 25 administrators with paid leaves or enhanced pay for lesser positions, including former Chancellor James Moeser.
Moeser was paid $390,000 last year to prepare to teach; this year, he will be paid more than $234,000 for his work co-teaching one class each semester and mentoring faculty members who are considering going into administration. His salary is nearly twice the average salary paid to other full professors in the music department.
The universities have retreat rights policies in place to help administrators, who often haven't taught in several years, retool for the classroom. The policies are under review, in part because of recent publicity about such agreements at N.C. State University, but also because of a tight state budget. Legislators spent last week raising taxes and cutting programs to close a revenue gap of more than $4 billion.
UNC officials say the policies are needed but acknowledge that the agreements need to be tightened.
"There has to be a system of accountability in place," said Hannah Gage, chairwoman of the UNC Board of Governors. "We have a policy that appears to have some holes in it."
A perk that pays
University administrators are among the best-paid employees in state government. UNC-Chapel Hill Chancellor Holden Thorp, for example, makes $420,000 a year, more than three times Gov. Beverly Perdue's $139,590 salary.
Retreat rights, however, are a lesser-known perquisite. Such payouts are rare beyond academia, and they have been handled in such a way that the public rarely hears about them. They hit the spotlight this spring, however, when NCSU Chancellor James Oblinger did not disclose the full terms of a retreat rights agreement with his second in command, Provost Larry Nielsen.
Those terms would have allowed Nielsen, who had taken the blame for hiring Mary Easley, wife of then-Gov. Mike Easley, to make an additional $310,255 as he made the transition to a faculty job.
The deal, which NCSU's board of trustees later rescinded, is now part of a wide-ranging federal investigation into Easley's dealings. Nielsen will get six months at his annual salary of $298,700 -- $149,350 -- then drop to a faculty salary of $156,715 when he returns to teaching late this year.
Oblinger was forced to resign over his failure to disclose the additional compensation and because of his role in Mary Easley's hiring. He's returning to the faculty and is now exercising his retreat rights agreement -- six months' leave at his annual chancellor's salary of $420,000, a total of $210,000. (Since he had not reached five years as chancellor, he did not qualify for a one-year leave, as Moeser did.)
Oblinger will drop to a faculty salary that has not yet been set, university officials say.
UNC system President Erskine Bowles has since been reviewing retreat rights agreements at all 16 campuses. In an interview, Bowles said he sees three problems: The agreements are too generous in terms of length and salary, they fail to identify what an administrator will do on leave and they are not thoroughly reviewed by the respective boards of trustees or the board of governors before they are approved.
"It certainly could use some reform," Bowles said.
Bowles' recommendation will include limiting the paid leaves to no more than six months, and at the rate of an "appropriate" faculty salary. The UNC Board of Governors is expected to consider Bowles' proposals at its meeting this week.
But Bowles said he will not call for an end to retreat rights agreements. They are a key part of the compensation package for faculty members at major public and private universities, he said, and to cull them would put the state's public universities at a competitive disadvantage.
"You have to have retreat rights to be competitive, and I say that based on discussions I've had with a number of recruiters and other leaders in higher education," he said.
More than a dozen public university campuses and systems grant administrative leaves of varying length and compensation, according to a survey by the UNC system. Duke University does as well, a spokesman confirmed. Wake Forest University has offered administrative leaves in the past but has no formal policy and doesn't do so consistently, a spokesman said.
A benefit that counts
UNC officials also say the leaves help administrators become effective professors after years away from teaching. Administrators who have gone on the retreats say they study the latest research in their fields and brush up on their teaching skills.
"There's no question I have benefited enormously, having the cushion of this time away to reflect and gain a sense of what I want to do," said Moeser, the former UNC-CH chancellor who concluded his eight-year tenure last summer.
Moeser, a musician by training, has been in university administration for decades and last supervised students 23 years ago at the University of Kansas. This fall he'll co-teach a first-year seminar focusing on music and the arts.
"Could I have done it without a research leave?" Moeser said. "Sure. But I would not have been approaching the fall with the same excitement and anticipation as I am."
Molly Broad, the former UNC system president under whose leadership the leave policies were created, said campus chancellors need time to again become familiar with their areas of expertise, which are often in fields that have progressed swiftly during their time away from day-to-day teaching.
"You're not doing the student a favor if you put a former chancellor in a classroom to teach a course on a subject he's been out of touch with for a long time," she said.
Broad was a beneficiary of the policy she championed; upon leaving the UNC system presidency at the end of 2005, she continued earning her full salary -- $331,254 -- for a year as she prepared for a new career teaching public administration and leadership at UNC-CH's School of Government. Broad spent about a year and a half in that UNC-CH post, training county managers and other public administrators, before leaving for the presidency of the American Council on Education.
Jones, the now-retired NCCU provost, had spent more than three decades at that university before retiring at the end of 2008. A historian, Jones spent part of her six-month administrative leave researching a book on Helen Gray Edmonds, a longtime NCCU history professor.
"I found it's really going to be a monumental study," she said, explaining why she then retired rather than go back to teaching at NCCU. "I realized I'd really need the time to do it. Hopefully, I can teach a course after this book is done. I'm hoping it will pay back [the university] in terms of the research on Doctor Edmonds' life."
Last year, Fayetteville State University paid former Provost Carol Blackshire-Belay $72,500 to go on leave for five months. That's more than twice the time she spent as provost; she resigned after less than two months in the position. During her paid leave, she was required to produce a report on "faculty development models."
Blackshire-Belay could not be reached for comment. After she returned to FSU for the spring semester, the university decided not to renew her contract.
She is one of four former provosts at FSU who have stepped down in the past five years. Combined, they have received $416,663 in paid leaves.
Not a new benefit
Retreat rights agreements for UNC administrators have been around for decades. UNC records show them as far back as 1973, when the 16-campus system was organized.
Bill Friday, UNC president from 1956 to 1986, said such agreements were rare then. They were put in place on a case-by-case basis, often to resolve a personnel problem. He said six months is long enough to prepare to teach and the administrators should only be paid a professor's salary that matches their experience and qualifications.
"I can only speak for myself, but once you leave the administration, you go back into the role you did before. And if that means you were a senior professor, then your salary will be in that level of competition," he said.
UNC system records show that since Friday's tenure, several chancellors have received leaves of six months to a year at full pay. But there was no system policy until 2005, during Broad's tenure. The Board of Governors adopted a policy that granted a yearlong leave with full pay for presidents and chancellors who had served at least five years. They could also then return to a faculty position at 60 percent of their chancellor's pay, or at a pay comparable to faculty members in similar positions, whichever was greater.
In the meantime, UNC officials were also offering leaves to lesser administrators, such as provosts, deans and vice chancellors. A policy approved in 2003 states that chancellors can offer their deputy administrators up to a year's leave at their full salaries before they return to the faculty. Upon return, the former administrator would be paid a salary comparable to similar faculty members.
Any agreements that offered more than the UNC policy need the respective university's board of trustees' approval.
At least one campus did not follow those requirements. At NCSU, Oblinger, in three cases, offered deputy administrators more pay than they would have been entitled to once they rejoined the faculty. UNC system officials say three other campuses, including UNC-CH, had "inconsistent" policies or practices that provided more money for administrators when they returned to the faculty.
NCSU Chancellor James Woodward received a yearlong leave with full pay when he stepped down as UNC-Charlotte's chancellor in 2005. He returned as a faculty member at 60percent of his chancellor's salary before taking the interim chancellor's job at NCSU.
He said it may be hard for the public to understand paying for these leaves but it is important for the universities to offer them.
He said leaves were granted to former professors with tenure, and if they have tenure "It's because you've been a very good faculty member."
Rep. Rick Glazier, the state House's chief education budget writer, is one of those folks in need of an explanation. Glazier, a Fayetteville Democrat, said he and his colleagues are hoping to rein in the leave agreements. The new state budget requires a study of the policies.
Glazier said he supported giving universities the flexibility to pay severance or move someone to a lesser job at a higher salary, but only to avoid costly litigation. He said the state can't afford an extended study leave for administrators, or to pay them more than what their faculty job typically pays.
"Whatever it once was, as a sort of academic custom or practice, those times have passed," Glazier said. "And from a taxpaying perspective, regardless of what happens at a private institution, in a public institution supported by taxpayer dollars, that's not a practice that should continue."
