Wayne Watson, the new Chicago State University president, will earn $250,000 a year under a five-year contract that was unanimously approved at a CSU board meeting this morning.

The contract also gives Watson a car and use of the president's mansion. There was no public discussion about the terms of the contract, which were not divulged until after the meeting had ended. Watson will start work Aug. 1.

His pay is only slightly more than what former CSU president Elnora Daniel made. And it’s less than the $300,000 he makes annually as the chancellor of the City Colleges of Chicago, according to district documents.

“In this recession economy, this is not the time to award contracts that substantially increase the chief executive’s salary above and beyond the prior year,” Board Chairman Leon Finney said after this morning’s meeting.

A year ago, CSU’s board did not renew Daniel’s contract. That move came following a state audit that found she had used a business credit card for thousands of dollars of personal charges. She later said she had confused the two cards because they looked similar; she repaid much of the money.
 
CSU spent $75,000 to hire The Hollins Group, an executive search firm, to find presidential candidates. The group whittled the initial applicant pool of 35 down to a dozen people. Board attorney Mark Dunn said in a document handed out at a meeting last month that the firm took little input from the board or an advisory committee.

The two finalists, Watson and Carol Adams, were announced at the end of March. Adams is the secretary of the Illinois Department of Human Services. They each spent a day on campus last month answering questions in sessions that turned hostile at times as students protested inside and outside the meeting room.

Some students and faculty objected to the lack of transparency in the search process. Others took issue with the candidates themselves, both of whom are well-known in Chicago’s political circles.

A few days after the interviews, 13 of the 15 members of a faculty committee that were supposed to have been involved in the search process abruptly resigned and said the committee had been excluded from the search process.

A memo from Dunn, circulated at that meeting, asserted that the committee could merely “assist and advise” and that it could not veto the board’s choice or terminate the search process.

Two weeks ago, the board unanimously voted to hire Watson, a move that drew boos and catcalls from the audience. Several students and faculty members assailed the board in the heated meeting, but the board gave no indication in response as to why they picked Watson over Adams.

After the April 29 meeting, Finney said the board picked Watson because of his “credentials, record of honesty and integrity and professionalism in office.”

The next day, Watson said he would not be deterred by people who were critical of him – a group he described as a vocal minority. He outlined possible plans to conduct an internal audit and said cleaning up CSU’s administrative ranks would be one of his top priorities.

While several students and members of the faculty spoke against Watson and the search process at this morning’s meeting, the new president also appeared to have supporters. One of them was the Rev. Janette Wilson, who said she was the former acting general counsel of Chicago State.

“We got Wayne Watson and we’re going to support him, and we’re going to make it work whether you like it or not,” Wilson said during the public comment portion of the meeting.