IU President Pamela Whitten gets 28% raise, contract extension despite rocky year on campus
Indiana University President Pamela Whitten will receive a $200,000 raise and a five-year contract extension despite widespread calls for her resignation by hundreds of IU faculty last year.
The IU Board of Trustees voted Thursday to increase Whitten's base salary by 28% to $900,000 and to extend her contract, initially set to expire in 2026, through 2031. Whitten's current salary is $702,000, IU spokesman Mark Bode said.
The raise, which will take effect July 1, moves Whitten's pay from the 50th percentile to the 70th percentile among presidents of peer universities in the Big Ten and Southeastern Conference, according to the trustees. She's still eligible for bonuses, which last year earned her an extra $175,000.
All but one of the nine trustees voted in favor of the raise and contract extension, lauding Whitten for IU's accomplishments since her tenure began in 2021. Several trustees praised Whitten's steadfast leadership in a tumultuous era, alluding to campus unrest that erupted with IU's crackdown on pro-Palestinian protests last April.
"(Whitten's) smart as a whip, has an indomitable spirit and understands ... we do the things the right way, and when people go low, we go high," said Quinn Buckner, chair of the Board of Trustees. "There's no need to play down there. And you can get things done when you do that."
Investigation: 'I begged you yesterday not to make martyrs': An inside look into IU's protest response
Vivian Winston, a former Kelley School of Business professor appointed as a trustee in 2022, cast the lone vote against the contract amendment. Despite Whitten's achievements, Winston said, the president hasn't done enough to address widespread faculty mistrust.
Winston cited a no-confidence vote of more than 800 IU Bloomington faculty last April after the Whitten administration's perceived encroachment on academic freedom that included canceling a Palestinian artist's exhibit at the campus museum. Whitten has created a "culture of fear," Winston said, particularly on the Bloomington campus.
The trustees should have waited for Whitten's five-year review in 2026 to make a decision, Winston said. If only the pay raise were on the table, Winston said, she would have voted yes.
"Reappointment of a university president should be done with transparency and only after getting input from a variety of stakeholders," Winston said. "A reappointment should not be done until we have conducted the outside, independent review."
Some of the accomplishments for which trustees lauded Whitten at Thursday's meeting include launching IU Indianapolis, recently named a top-tier U.S. research university; growing research expenditures by 28% since 2021 and obtaining IU's largest-ever research grant for $138 million; leading a long-term budget redesign as part of a 2030 strategic plan; and traveling to all 92 counties to meet with Hoosiers.
At the meeting Thursday at the Madame Walker Legacy Center in downtown Indianapolis, trustee Catherine Langham praised Whitten's "courageous leadership and unflappable moral courage."
"Regardless of the situation," Langham said, "(Whitten) is committed to doing the right thing for IU to ensure its status as a premier academic and research institution."
Email IndyStar Housing, Growth and Development Reporter Jordan Smith at JTsmith@gannett.com. Follow him on X: @jordantsmith09
This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: IU President Pam Whitten gets raise and contract extension
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