Central Michigan University offered its faculty a lackluster contract, fears a possible callback of state funding and is scraping together funds to create a medical school.

And University President Michael Rao just received a pay raise.

This is absurd.

It’s not that Rao is not doing a fine job. He is. But a raise for one of the university’s best-paid employees is inconsistent with the economic troubles that administrators claim to be experiencing.

Similarly, Rao’s $100,000 donation to the medical school is greatly appreciated. But the university on the whole, not only the medical school, is suffering. Dedicated funds do not have the same effect.

The Board of Trustees never should have offered Rao the raise, a 3 percent salary increase, from $293,550 to $302,357, and a 10 percent recurring annual increase in retention bonuses, starting at $100,000 in 2009.

Trustees should have courteously told Rao that, given the state of the economy, a raise is not feasible this year. After all, this is the same argument administrators expected faculty to accept.

At the very least, when faced with a pay increase that the university cannot afford, Rao should have politely declined, just like the presidents at University of Washington and Washington State University.

Tough times call for cutbacks. This is not a question of whether CMU is paying Rao what he ‘deserves,’ according to some abstract criterion of value. This is a question of whether, given everything else on the university’s docket, it is reasonable for CMU to increase his salary.

The answer is clearly ‘no.’ More than many others on campus, Rao can afford to take a hit. His current salary, before the raise, is quite good.

CMU needs to focus on making its academics strong and its tuition affordable. This cannot occur when its president continues receiving raises while tuition skyrockets and academic colleges are strapped for cash.

As steward of the university, Rao could have sent a strong message to the community by rejecting his pay raise. He could have embodied the sacrifice asked of faculty and staff: a willingness to take pay cuts to help the university weather the economic crisis.

Instead, Rao accepted the increase as the rest of the university prepares to accept stagnant or decreasing salaries, and as the private sector continues making cutbacks.

One cannot help but feel that Rao and the Trustees are in their own bizarro universe.

And students are paying for it.

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