Anemia in Academia: Epilogue - Public mission, private pay (#546)

Force #9: Honesty and Integrity.

In this eight-part series, I have tried to name the forces that leave academic life pale and breathless:

Bureaucracy,

Metrics culture,

Erosion of mentorship,

Shrinking autonomy, and

The quiet moral injury that comes when meaning is replaced by measurement.

But epilogues are not meant to repeat the diagnosis. They are meant to point to something concrete. A symbol that reveals the deeper pattern.

For me, one such symbol is this:

A public veterinary school senior administrator receiving a university salary of more than half a million dollars a year

while also serving as a paid director of a major animal-health corporation.

Each element may be justified separately. It is their convergence that tells the story.

A Salary the University Can Defend

A senior administrator’s salary in the above $500,000 range can be defended in familiar terms:

• Market competitiveness,

• Institutional scale and complexity,

• Responsibility for hospitals, research programs, accreditation, and fundraising, and

• Leadership in a nationally prominent professional school.

None of those arguments are frivolous. They have merit.

I believe in the adage:

If you want someone at the helm who has the skills to lead, you must give that person a better deal than they could get somewhere else.

Running a large veterinary school is executive work. A full-time job! And compensation should be commensurate with this 100% time commitment.

However, the discussion changes when compensation does not stop at the university payroll.

The Other Salary

When a senior administrator of a public veterinary school also serves on the board of directors of a major pharmaceutical manufacturer, the structure becomes more complicated.

Corporate board service at this level commonly includes:

• Annual cash retainers,

• Stock or equity awards, and

• Committee stipends.

The total value may approach or exceed the scale of the university salary itself. Some of these rewards may be deferred until a later date, so don't appear on current conflict of commitment documents.

This outside activity may be disclosed. It may be approved. It may comply with the university’s conflict-of-commitment and conflict-of-interest rules for senior administrators.

But you must admit, it raises some important questions…

When a Full-time commitment isn’t

I have a simple question.

If an administrator is well rewarded by a university for a full-time commitment, where does the time come from to simultaneously be an effective and active board member on a corporate board of directors?

The question is not legal or procedural. It is symbolic.

Because universities do not merely pay people.

They signal what they value.

Where the Policy Tension Appears

Many universities classify faculty as full-time employees whose professional effort is expected to be primarily devoted to the university.

That expectation is not informal. It is codified.

Faculty must:

• Report outside activities,

• Limit consulting days per year,

• Seek approval for external compensation, and

• Demonstrate that outside work does not interfere with teaching, research, or service.

The guiding principle is simple:

The university pays you full-time to serve its mission.

Outside work is permitted only within defined limits.

Why Leadership Is Treated More Flexibly

Senior administrators technically fall under the same framework. But their external roles are often interpreted differently.

Board service, for example, is frequently justified as:

• Strengthening industry relationships,

• Enhancing institutional visibility,

• Supporting fundraising capacity, and

• Providing strategic insight into the profession.

In policy language, it becomes:

External engagement that benefits the university...

The same activity that might raise concern for an ordinary faculty member can therefore be framed as an institutional asset when undertaken by leadership.

The Asymmetry Faculty Feel

This is where the issue becomes structural rather than personal.

A typical faculty member may:

• Need permission for consulting,

• Be limited in outside earnings,

• Be required to document time away from campus duties, and

• Face scrutiny if external roles expand.

Meanwhile, a senior administrator’s corporate board service may be seen as:

• Compatible with full-time employment,

• Aligned with strategic leadership, and

• Even advantageous to the institution.

  
  

The rules may technically be the same.

But their interpretation can feel very different.

And systems are judged not only by their written policies, but by how evenly those policies are experienced.

What This Signals About the Direction of Academia

Throughout this series, I have argued that academia is increasingly shaped by incentives that do not nourish teaching, mentorship, or intellectual risk.

This is one of those incentives made visible.

If the highest rewards go to leaders who move comfortably between university administration and corporate governance, the institution quietly teaches everyone else what matters most:

Relationships over scholarship.

Governance over mentorship.

Branding over craft.

Revenue over renewal.

That is not a moral judgment about one individual. It is a structural message from the system itself. And we learn from systems.

Why This Matters to the People Doing the Work

Faculty live on the receiving end of these signals.

They see:

Unfilled positions,

Expanding class sizes,

Growing clinical and teaching loads,

Less time for research and mentorship, and

Constant pressure for measurable outputs.

They are told budgets are tight and hiring is difficult.

So, when leadership compensation rises into corporate territory, and leadership simultaneously participates in corporate governance, the inevitable question is not:

Is this permitted?

It is:

What, exactly, is the university becoming?

What the Epilogue Leaves Us With

Anemia is not only about fatigue. It is about oxygen.

In healthy academic life, oxygen comes from:

• Time to think,

• Trust in professional judgment,

• Mentorship as a core responsibility,

• Teaching as a craft,

• Scholarship as a public good, and

• Leadership visibly aligned with the institution’s mission.

When compensation structures begin to resemble corporate executive life, the risk is not merely poor optics.

The risk is that the university begins to internalize corporate logic, and to treat the academic mission as something to be managed rather than something to be protected.

Final Reflection

I do believe academic leaders should be well paid to give 100% of their time to the university’s mission.

I do not believe industry engagement is inherently wrong.

And I understand the pressures universities face in a competitive world.

But the anemia in academia is not just exhaustion.

It is the slow erosion of confidence in the fact that the institution’s policies reflect its professed values.

When full-time commitment is rigorously enforced for faculty but interpreted more elastically for leadership, the issue is no longer policy compliance.

It becomes a question of institutional equity, and ultimately of institutional identity.

Because once a university begins to look like a corporation, it should not be surprised when its people begin to feel like employees rather than stewards of a shared intellectual and moral enterprise.

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