High turnover reported among MSU deans

Deans seem to be dropping like flies at Montana State University, where nearly half the 12 deans’ jobs are vacant.

By GAIL SCHONTZLER Chronicle Staff Writer

Three deans have left for jobs with greater responsibilities at other universities that pay as much as 40 percent more than MSU. And two deans are retiring, making a total of five openings for some of the most important academic jobs at MSU.

Three of the departing deans were among the highest-ranking, highest-paid women at MSU.

MSU Provost Dave Dooley said Friday the large number of vacancies results from a coincidence of factors — retirements by a couple of long-serving deans and other universities being attracted to high-quality administrators at MSU.

"We do compete in a national marketplace for talent, and unfortunately a great many institutions are capable of offering far higher salaries than we are," Dooley said.

Latest to leave is Agriculture College Dean Sharron Quisenberry. MSU’s highest-paid woman, she has been making $119,843. MSU announced this week that she’s leaving for Virginia Tech, where she will be dean of the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Her salary at Virginia Tech will be larger, Quisenberry said, declining to say how much it would be.

But the more important reason she took the job is the opportunity, she said.

Virginia Tech is a prestigious university with twice as many students as MSU. Its agriculture college is one of the top 10 nationally in terms of funding, with a faculty two to three times larger than MSU’s College of Agriculture.

Known as one of only four women in the nation heading colleges of agriculture, Quisenberry said she was nominated for the Virginia job. The university liked her record of increasing enrollment by more than 9 percent and quadrupling the college’s grant funding in four years.

"It was a very rough decision to make," Quisenberry said. "I love Montana. … It’s one of those career opportunities that only come around once in a lifetime."

Nursing Dean Lea Acord, who earned $112,998 at MSU, is leaving for a significantly better-paying dean’s job at Marquette University, a Catholic school in Milwaukee, which will also be closer to her first grandchild.

Dave Bryant left in January to become president of Oklahoma Panhandle State University, which offered $121,000. He had been making more than $110,000 at MSU, where he was listed as Extension Service dean. Dooley said Bryant’s title was actually vice provost, but it is still a top academic administrative position.

Retirement has claimed two deans, Marilyn Wessel, dean of the Museum of the Rockies, who was making $90,711, and Jim McMillan, dean of the College of Letters and Sciences. After eight years of being in charge of MSU’s largest college, which paid $106,707, McMillan is returning to teaching.

A national search for McMillan’s replacement is just concluding, Dooley said. National searches are under way for the head of Extension and will soon begin for nursing and agriculture deans.

http://bozemandailychronicle.com/articles/2003/05/27/news/deansbzbigs.txt