Spencer Schneier
     News Editor

Last week, the UNC System announced that there would be pay raises for 12 chancellors across the UNC System.

The move comes amid controversy surrounding the appointment of Margaret Spellings as President and the resignation of John Fennebresque as the head of the Board of Governors.

When asked to explain the move, the UNC System simply referred to the raises as “market adjustments,” but failed to offer anything more concrete.

UNCG’s Chancellor Frank Gilliam was not one of the 12 chancellors to receive a raise, though when he was hired, he received a boost in pay over former-Chancellor Linda Brady.

As noted in the News and Observer, the move comes amid stagnation in pay for faculty and university employees, who received just a $750 bonus this year.

NC State Chancellor Randy Woodson received a raise of $70,000, and his salary of $590,000 is the highest in the system. UNC-Chapel Hill’s Chancellor Carol Folt received an increase of $50,000, which brought her yearly salary to $570,000. The salary increases come out of the state budget.

Many at UNCG and throughout the state have been critical of the UNC system in recent weeks, and the pay raises come at a time when the administration is coming under increasing scrutiny for its secretive decision-making processes.

In an August interview with The Carolinian, Gilliam stressed that the pay increases for administrators is not the cause of rising student costs and that the rising price for administrators is a result of a competitive market. This echoes the sentiment laid out by the UNC System in response to this past week’s news.

“The other dimension that worries me about it is that this is another example of a Board of Governors that just doesn’t seem to get it. That’s something that many of us are very anxious about,” UNC-Chapel Hill sociology professor Andrew Perrin said in an interview with the News and Observer.

The News and Observer noted in its report that the highest percentage increases went to the chancellors of East Carolina, Western Carolina and UNC-Charlotte. UNC-Charlotte Chancellor Phil Dubois and ECU Chancellor Steve Ballard are the two most tenured chancellors in the system.

Also included in the News and Observer’s report is that new system president Margaret Spellings will be one of the highest paid university presidents in the country, receiving a yearly salary of $775,000, which represents an increase of nearly $200,000 over current president Tom Ross.

According to WNCN, a group of UNC system faculty members is urging the chancellors to turn down their pay raises.

They are frustrated as they were not able to secure a pay raise this past year, despite their lower salaries.

“It’s a difficult position to be in where you’re always wondering whether you’ll be renewed the next year, whether you’ll be able to commit to your students over the course of their college careers, and whether you’ll be living in the same place and be able to make a family,” John Steen, a member of the faculty advocate group Faculty Forward, told WNCN.