Excerpt from the Dayton Daily News
Wright State University faces a challenging budgetary situation, and the president of the university’s faculty union is pointing to the salary for Scott Nagy, the men’s basketball coach at the university.
On Thursday, Wright State President Sue Edwards circulated a campus email saying the institution has few choices but to implement workforce cuts and other budgetary restrictions. She didn’t offer precise numbers about expected cuts.
And faculty members want precise numbers, their union president said. Mid-term contract talks have started with Wright State’s faculty and police unions.
Faculty members are dedicated to the institution, said Noeleen McIlvenna, president of the university’s faculty union, the AAUP (American Association of University Professors)-WSU. But faculty members need to see specifics in contract talks, she added.
“We’re going to require a lot more specifics of the budgeting and a lot more precision on it before we start bargaining anything away,” McIlvenna said Friday. “If it came to that, of course the university (faculty) would make sacrifices. They already have made sacrifices.”
As an example of an area she believes needs attention, she pointed to the $500,000 annual salary for Scott Nagy, Wright State’s men’s basketball coach, “by far the highest in the Horizon League,” McIlvenna said.
She said that when she raises Nagy’s salary with university representatives, they respond with a “stony silence.”
“Can we cut the stuff that’s not academic first?” McIlvenna said.
