To the Editors:

Boy, was I wrong! I thought nothing could surprise me more than Dick Grasso, this year’s $140 million man, leaning out the window of his limousine and soliciting coins to spruce up the New York Stock Exchange.

But then I received a letter from Oberlin asking me to donate money to the College — a few weeks after I read a New York Times report (Nov. 10, 2003) that Oberlin is one of the only three liberal arts colleges to pay its president an annual salary in excess of $400, 000.

This cash flow reminds me that one autumn, in the early 1960s when I was a student at Oberlin, I think I saw the College’s painters apply fresh yellow color to the exterior of a wooden building (the Geography Department?) only weeks before that building was demolished. Something seems not quite right.

When the survey reported by the Times was conducted, the chancellor of the City university of New York earned a salary of $250,000. (The Times reported in late Ocober, 2003 that it increased to $350,000.) CUNY has many achievements and notable graduates, multiple campuses, and thousands of students from diverse backgrounds.

Its administration manages a huge budget in a tricky political climate. Chancellor Matthew Goldstein is a scholar and author, whom I knew two decades ago when we did related research in mathematical statistics.

He was a nice guy, as well as a good fund-raiser. Perhaps he is underpaid, especially considering that the cost of living in New York City is higher than in Oberlin, Ohio.

Currently I am more familiar with the University of British Columbia. UBC pays its CEO, Martha Piper, an annual salary of about $350,000 Canadian dollars, roughly 60% of what Oberlin pays Nancy Dye.

Yet UBC is perhaps 10 times as big or complex an enterprise, depending whether one considers number of students, employees, courses, research budgets, farm and land areas, rental properties and so on to increase complexity.

I do not know Oberlin’s current president, Nancy S. Dye. I trust she is good at her job and I hope that she does better than Robert K. Carr, who served in loco parentis when I was a student.

Carr never responded directly when I wrote essays in the student newspaper nor when I sent him mail; instead his Dean of Men summoned me to an office 40 years ago, to tell me that “We can’t expel a student for not acting his age, but there are some students I just don’t think should ever have an Oberlin Degree.” (What else did the Dean of Women or the Dean of Men do to earn their salaries?)

I left Oberlin for New York a few months later, still not mature enough to merit a large salary, but proud to have earned a Phi Beta Kappa key and an Oberlin A.B., summa cum laude, with highest honors — and pleased that Professor Sam Goldberg gave me good advice about Ph.D. programs and graduate schools.

I guess I did gain a lot from my Oberlin experiences. Where else would I have heard so much organ music plus live performances by Igor Stravinsky, Joan Baez, Sleepy John Estes, the Country Gentlemen and a great variety of other artists? — including my fellow students at the College and the Conservatory. Also of course, I heard a 19th century doxology sung a zillion times at meals in Oberlin dining halls.

No doubt Oberlin has changed now (although I might like current campus orthodoxies no better than old doxology). Searching beyond the New York Times however, some attitudes seem the same as ever.

It appears that at about the time when Oberlin’s board of trustees included $1 million bonus as part of Nancy Dye’s pay package. However, a year ago, the College also laid off employees to balance a budget.
According to an Oberlin Review report (Nov. 14, 2003) after recent salary news, the board chairman said he “didn’t really care” what the media thought of Oberlin — while two students said: “These are the same people who have been raising our tuition way above inflation for years and built two unneeded science centers”; and “Is there anyone who really thinks this is a good investment? Does anyone really think that this salary is how they want their money to be used?”

If I supported Oberlin College more enthusiastically, then would Nancy Dye contribute funds for more activities at the Vancouver public school my daughter, at age 8, now attends? Perhaps I should ask Dr. Dye.

Or perhaps she donates much of her salary to destitute children who suffer from diseases, wars, and terror attacks. But, there is something loonie about Oberlin asking me to give the College money.

Still, my own life (with zero salary) now is too comfortable to protest much; so I may go ahead and mail to Oberlin College my good (and newly adopted) Canadian dollar coin — or “loonie.” Yes, I do want to flip a cheery bird to Oberlin’s top brass.

—Ned Glick
OC ’64