In 2020, Winthrop University President George Hynd, as well as the entire Winthrop community, experienced many hardships due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The university’s budget was stretched rather thin, placing the university in a position where it had to furlough faculty and staff.
In an interview with The Herald on Aug. 25, 2020, Hynd said, “The furlough was a way for us to close the gap in terms of the distance between our anticipated revenues and expenditures… there are benefits to the university and to the employees for furloughs… everybody that is furloughed, for whatever days they are furloughed, they are not receiving any income on that day… The advantage is that, number one, they keep their job, and, number two, their benefits continue even during the days that they are not being paid.”
Regardless of taking furlough days, workloads seldom lessened, and many Winthrop professors and other employees experienced an increase in responsibility as a result of adapting to life during a global pandemic.
Enduring a pay cut amidst navigating nuance online classrooms proved extra challenging and taxing on professors.
According to an article published by The State on Dec. 9, 2020, Hynd received a 7% increase in pay as a result of Agency Head Salary Commission’s decision to increase the minimum pay band for certain college presidents in South Carolina “in order to be more competitive with other states” and to “account [for] increased job responsibilities.”
The minimum pay band for a university president like Hynd has been raised from $183,313 to $195,229.
Hynd did indeed experience an increase in responsibility as the virus continued to sweep through the surrounding areas, however, only he received an increase in pay while other faculty and staff, who also experienced an increase in workload as a result of the pandemic, were furloughed.
Judy Longshaw, a news and media services manager at Winthrop, said, “This pay raise was not based on Dr. Hynd’s performance or work to date on Winthrop’s behalf. It was simply a recognition by the Agency Head Salary Commission that our category’s minimum pay band should be increased.”
“It is important to note that Winthrop did not initiate this pay raise, it is not linked to Dr. Hynd’s performance, and Winthrop’s presidential salary now, as it was under Dr. Mahony, is limited to the minimum pay of the band.”
Winthrop is not the only organization that is suffering through such a discrepancy in pay between heads and employees.
According to The State’s article, “Base teacher pay was increased to $35,000 in 2019-20. But legislators held off on further efforts to in- crease state employee and teacher pay in the last session because of the economic uncertainty caused by the pandemic.”
While millions of Americans have suffered great financial strain as a result of events in 2020, including teachers, many others, such as major department heads and university presidents, received pay raises.
There is hope, however, that Hynd’s and the Finance and Business Affairs Division’s plan to stick to a three-to-five-year budget, will bring about financial recovery from the pandemic, thus filling in the now increased gap between the president’s pay and the faculty’s pay.
“I’ve asked our finance and business affairs division to work on a dynamic budget model that will allow us to implement a 3-5 year budget plan that is based on realistic assumptions,” Hynd said in his State of the University Address on Nov. 18. “This budget model will consider undergraduate, graduate, and graduate online enrollment and tuition rates, retention and graduation rates by class, housing occupancy, and meal plans purchased and other revenue resources: state funding, grant indirects, contract courses, athletics, etc.”
Image courtesy Winthrop University
