Many UM professors and other faculty — forced to teach in person and accept compensation cuts during the COVID-19 pandemic — are fuming and say staff morale has plunged. Some members of the UM Faculty Senate view Mario Cristobal’s $80 million contract as only the latest sign of the administration’s disrespect for the academic staff at the private university. As part of deep pandemic cutbacks, the university had slashed more than $100 million in its matching contributions to faculty members’ retirement plans in the 2020-2021 academic year. Now, some faculty believe those cuts have helped bankroll lavish spending on athletics and construction projects and could hurt the school academically. “It’s hard to imagine how the school really expects to compete for high quality academic talent when it is choosing to spend money in places that it seems to value more highly,” said one faculty member who did not want to be identified because of possible repercussions. He noted that during his five years at UM, his compensation has risen less than $3,000 and that overall salaries are not competitive with those at other private universities. UM’s financial fortunes have dramatically improved in the past year, according to top administrators and university audits. With aggressive personnel reductions and escalating profits from UM’s sprawling healthcare system, audits available through May 31, 2021 show earnings of more than $400 million at the nonprofit school. Although the university agreed to reinstate its matching contributions to the faculty members’ 401(k) retirement plans for the new academic year starting June 1, 2021, the administration rejected their request to restore those same benefits that had been cut in the previous year.
