Academics or athletics: Salary rosters published

By Anna Dorr, For The Miami Student

On March 29, Bizjournals published the 2016 salary database for Miami University, revealing that head football coach Chuck Martin will receive an annual salary $33 thousand higher than President David Hodge. Across the country, universities have higher pay for their athletic coaching staffs than for their presidents, raising the question of what is valued more: academics or athletics.

According to the same source, salary databases that were published in 2015 for the Ohio State University showed that head football coach Urban Meyer receives almost $19,000 more in annual salary pay than President Michael Drake.

Cathy Wagner, professor of English and vice president of Miami's American Association of University Professors (AAUP) advocacy chapter, noticed the general decline in cash flow in academic admission and an increase in athletic salaries at Miami.

"I think anybody would look at those salaries and think, 'What the heck is going on? Is this a school?'" Wagner said. "Once you start looking into this stuff, you see that half the student fees go to the football program."

Each year, Miami University allocates $20 million to intercollegiate athletics and ,each year, student fees are used to cover these costs. Yet students are not aware that their fees help pay for this loss.

"Getting information out is really important so that students know what's going on," said Wagner.

Miami's Board of Trustees is responsible for the allocation of student fees, but Wagner thinks more community input is called for.

"[The Board of Trustees] are supposed to represent the Miami community and do what's best for Miami," Wagner said. "I think it would be good to find out what the community thinks and then convey that to the Board."

Chief Financial Officer to the Board of Trustees David Creamer, Vice President of Finance and Business Services, said that the board welcomes feedback from a variety of constituencies.

"Unfortunately, with these issues, there are oftentimes disagreements among the constituencies about what to prioritize," Creamer said. "Because there are many that argue that we probably should pay more [for a talented football coach]."

Wagner said the competitiveness of sports and higher education is increasing, which only increases salaries.

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"We are seeing market pressures as it relates to coaches' salaries," Wagner said. "There's a limited number of people who do these things, and so [salaries are] based upon market pressures that come into play."

In Miami's case, the market for a football coach necessitated paying third-year coach Martin a higher salary than his predecessor, Don Treadwell.

First-year Matthew Pesacreta does not agree with the discrepancy between Hodge's and Martin's respective salaries. Though athletics are important to him, Pesacreta thinks the salary change between Chuck Martin and president Hodge should be reevaluated.

"The football team has not produced results nor been a successful team," Pesacreta said. "While [Martin's] job may require a lot of work, so does President Hodge's."

Though the budget for athletics hasn't affected his academic experience, Pesacreta believes this money should be put toward academics instead of athletics.

"Miami athletics has not proved they are worthy of more funding," Pesacreta said. "Until I see this, we need to focus on academics."