In the weeks leading up to the end of the year, three ASU deans announced they were leaving the University to pursue other opportunities.
Paul Schiff Berman, Dean and Foundation Professor of Law at the Sandra Day O’Connor College of Law; Debra Friedman, Dean of the College of Public Programs; and ASU College of Nursing and Health Innovation Dean Bernadette Melnyk have all accepted job offers with other universities.
In a March interview with The State Press, ASU President Michael Crow expressed concerns that faculty would begin to leave the University, as budget cuts in Arizona prevented ASU from offering salary increases.
Other universities, with financial backing from the state, Crow said, might be able to give educators a “better offer.”
“They’ll have resources to start recruiting our faculty, our staff,” Crow said. “And then you start seeing disruptions at that point.”
Berman will begin working at George Washington University; Friedman at the University of Washington, Tacoma; and Melnyk at Ohio State University.
Melnyk’s leave was the most recently announced, on May 20. Melnyk, who was also Vice Provost of the ASU Downtown campus, will be succeeded in that position by Dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication Christopher Callahan.
ASU spokeswoman Sharon Keeler said the deans had all left for excellent opportunities, and that it’s typical for faculty to announce departures at the end of the year.
Virginia, Crow noted, has increased public expenditures in universities despite an economic recession, while Maryland has decreased funding by less than 1 percent.
“Our faculty are now three years without a salary increase,” Crow said.
The University sometimes makes so-called “retention offers” to top educators to provide an incentive for them to stay, Crow said. However, the increases are only offered to about 7 percent of the University’s faculty, Crow said.
Berman said he had an “extraordinarily exciting” three years at ASU, but called his departure from ASU “bittersweet.”
“The George Washington opportunity is particularly good because it allows me to operate a law school on a much larger scope,” he said.
Berman, however, said any growth or finances the University might be weighing had no effect on his final decision to leave.
He noted that the Sandra Day O’Connor College was already on its way through programs that would put it on a path to financial independence.
“I think there was a path for navigating the financial difficulties,” Berman said. “So that was not the reason.”
Reach the reporter at clecher@asu.edu
