College president, teach thyself
THE MOTTO of Suffolk University is "Honestas et Diligentia," meaning, roughly, "Honor and diligence." Unfortunately, the president and board of trustees at Suffolk seem to have a tin ear for Latin translations.
As the Globe reported recently, Suffolk president David Sargent was awarded a pay package in the 2006-7 academic year that made him the highest-paid university president in the nation at that time: $2.8 million, including a $436,000 base salary, $556,000 in deferred pay, and bonuses amounting to another $532,000. The news, first reported in the Chronicle of Higher Education, has roiled the campus, where many students have taken out burdensome loans to cover the $26,000 annual tuition.
Now comes news that some on the Suffolk board of trustees, which approved Sargent's pay package, have financial relationships as lobbyists and publicists for the school - a clear conflict of interest of the sort that is warned against in beginning courses in nonprofit law. "Full disclosure" is not enough; board members should refuse mutually beneficial financial arrangements with their institutions - period.
At a time when higher-education endowments are declining, and capital projects are being delayed, several of Sargent's colleagues in academia have agreed to take voluntary pay cuts, The New York Times reported last week. Sargent, 77, has so far declined to make a similar gesture.
In a lifetime career at Suffolk University, starting in 1957, Sargent has enhanced its reputation, opening a law school and campuses in Senegal and Spain. But Sargent is not doing the honorable thing by clinging to this pay package. And the board did not exercise due diligence by sloughing off the obvious conflicts. They need remedial education, and fast. 