With one day to go before commencement, Western Colorado University President Greg Salsbury said Friday, May 7 that he would retire from his post at the end of June. But public records show that Salsbury is not simply stepping away. Rather, he is being paid $330,892 to end his contract and to settle with the university “in compromise of disputed claims.”
Salsbury signed a release and settlement agreement with the university on April 30. The document states that Salsbury will be paid a sum equivalent to one year of his base salary — $288,000 — plus $42,982 in paid vacation leave. Salsbury will also continue to receive his regular salary until his final day as president.
That final day is set for June 29, though the agreement stipulates that Salsbury will go on paid leave starting June 1. By that date he is required to communicate with Western’s major donors and to introduce them to the trustees and the interim president. Once Salsbury’s leave starts, he is is freed from his obligations as president.
Salsbury had two years remaining on his employment contract with Western. His total annual compensation was set at $340,000 and allowed to increase yearly according to the average percent change of all administrator salaries.
Salsbury’s termination agreement with the university comes after many students, administrators and faculty publicly pointed to failings in his leadership. In March a majority of faculty asked that he resign, and last month 12 department heads, program directors and deans asked the university’s board of trustees to remove him.
“I am confident that I leave Western in a better place than when I arrived. I now pass the baton to you and the next generation to continue the journey and successes,” Salsbury wrote in an email sent to students and employees on May 7 at 7:30 a.m.
Salsbury did not participate in graduation on May 8 “to ensure that the announcement of this retirement does not overshadow the excitement of the students and their families” and to limit the number of people on stage in light of COVID-19, he wrote.
Discontent over Salsbury’s leadership has been brewing for years at Western, but the wave of requests for his ouster this year stemmed from a statement he emailed in January about the Capitol riot and other violent protests. The perceived political insensitivity of his January statement added to beliefs among faculty and students that Salsbury lacked moral leadership on matters of race, disabilities and gender.
Prior to Salsbury’s January statement, the trustees typically met just a few times each year. But since Salsbury sent the controversial email on Jan. 7, the trustees have met 31 times, including eight listening sessions with campus constituencies like students and administrators. In those meetings they called 11 separate executive sessions to discuss personnel matters and frequently invited Salsbury to join them for those executive sessions.
Following an executive session regarding personnel matters on April 30, the board voted to give Board Chair Chris Blees signature authority pursuant to the advice of the university’s attorneys. Blees signed Salsbury’s termination agreement on the board’s behalf.
A few hours after announcing his retirement on Friday, Salsbury addressed the trustees in a board meeting at the University Center ballroom. He referenced his private sector career, which was serving as executive vice president of Jackson National Life prior to his being hired as Western president in 2014.
“Thank you for allowing me to serve in this role for the last seven plus years,” Salsbury said. “It has been a truly growing experience in many ways. I was motivated coming into this position to give back to higher education, which I felt had enriched my life greatly. I said in my opening interviews, when I interviewed with the board then for this position, that I had always prided myself in the private sector first and foremost as a teacher. And I think most of my success in the private sector came from approaching things from an instrutors’ perspective of helping people learn, helping people achieve and taking concerted interest in the people that I work with. I think we’ve done some great things with the school, I think it’s on a great path, not that it doesn't have plenty of challenges — it does— but that was the nature of the situation. I think we’ve improved it. I hope that can continue.”
Salsbury said he would round out his tenure with trips to.gunnisontimes ALL THE visit donors, including a trip to California, and that he would be “plugging away to my last day.” The Board of Trustees said in a statement that Salsbury would spend more time with his family following his last day on June 29.
Blees said at the May 7 meeting that he was “grateful for the efforts of the president and excited for his retirement for him.”
The written statement from the board listed some of Salsbury’s achievements as president. He secured a $80 million donation from Western alumnus Paul Rady, an oil and gas billionaire. That gift led to the construction of the Paul M. Rady School of Computer Science and Engineering, as well as a partnership with the University of Colorado. Salsbury overhauled Western’s website, marketing and recruitment efforts. He presided over the establishment of several new graduate programs. And he successfully lobbied for the Colorado legislature to simplify the institution’s name from Western State Colorado University to Western Colorado University.
Salsbury in his written statement enumerated the challenges that met him as he stepped in as president in 2014: “dangerous” debt-to-income ratios, “limited reserves, dwindling enrollment, soaring costs of tuition, fees and salaries, a competitor school trying to appropriate our name, and unbalanced curricula offerings.”
There was also a “colossal transformation unfolding for higher education” that threatened the competitiveness of traditional liberal arts colleges, Salsbury noted.
“Just as we were beginning to get a handle on a number of these, we were hit with a worldwide pandemic that created the worst crisis in the history of our school. Despite all of this and a fair number of other distractions over the years, we were able to navigate, survive and even progress,” Salsbury wrote.
The Board of Trustees meets today to appoint an interim president and to establish a presidential hiring committee.
(Sam Liebl can be contacted at 970.641.1414 or editor@gunnisontimes.com)
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