College of Medicine salaries will total $1.37 million annually
Dr. Ernest Yoder approached the Board of Trustees last month to report a key accomplishment for the College of Medicine.
The college’s founding dean announced the completion of his “dream dean team” after months of searching — a step in the accreditation process for which the university will allocate a total of $1.37 million for salaries.
Guidelines from the Liaison Committee on Medical Education, the accrediting body, mandate medical schools have at least the four associate dean positions. Provost Gary Shapiro said the leadership deans are all extremely critical to the College of Medicine’s future success.
“There is a huge amount of work to be done and each of these four individuals brings a great deal of expertise and a great deal of industriousness,” he said. “We are working on all the details that need to be accomplished before we admit our first class.”
Deborah Biggs, associate dean of Administration and Finance, Nehad El-Sawi, associate dean of Medical Education and Faculty Development, Dr. Sean Kesterson, associate dean of Clinical Affairs and Hospital Relations, and Dr. Lori Arviso Alvord, associate dean of Student Affairs, make up CMU’s four associate medical college deans.
The $1.37 million in associate dean and dean salaries would be allocated annually. That total excludes performance incentives and miscellaneous benefits.
Yoder said the salaries are all at or below the 50th percentile range among similar positions across the country.
“We collected data on comparable salaries at a variety of institutions for a variety of positions (from professional organizations in colleges of medicine),” Shapiro said.
Shapiro said Yoder recommended salaries for each of the deans after they analyzed the data. Shapiro then reviewed the recommendations and submitted the amounts to the Office of Human Resources for approval.
“The salaries are very reasonable,” Yoder said.
Comparing salaries
Shapiro said CMU had to be competitive because the College of Medicine is a new school. The associate deans at CMU are not paid like those at large and well-known medical colleges, but like medical colleges similar to what CMU will develop into, he said.
“Based upon that, the salaries that we established for our associate deans were suitable in terms of comparable data and were critical for attracting qualified individuals,” he said. “We are not aiming to be the highest paid, but we’re aiming to be within comparable figures.”
In addition to its two highest-ranking deans, Michigan State University employs six associate deans for their College of Human Medicine. Wayne State University employs 13 associate and assistant deans. MSU pays about $1.8 million annually for their college, while WSU pays about $3.44 million for their school of medicine.
CMU has no further plans to hire additional College of Medicine deans at this time, Shapiro said.
Yoder said he and the associate deans will work on many projects this semester. They include recruiting faculty, developing curriculum and creating clinical affiliations.
“I want to stop short of the word ‘overwhelming,’ but the workload is huge because this is all about design and start up,” Yoder said.
He said the College of Medicine will complete their accreditation documents in early February in preparation of the LCME committee meeting.
“The reason we have to have them done in February is for a complete and careful review,” he said.
LCME officials will approve the documents and visit campus in June. CMU will begin recruitment of students in fall 2011, Yoder said.
