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BY BOB HOLT
NEWJERSEYNEWSROOM.COM
An expensive contract buyout believed to be based partly on petty disagreements will be sending Rowan University president Donald Farish into retirement sooner than expected. Rowan will pay its longtime president $600,000 over a two year period to retire this year.
The Glassboro school's board of trustees announced Thursday that Donald Farish will be leaving June 30. In October, he had announced plans to leave in June 2012.
According to the Press of Atlantic City, the $600,000 compensation will be paid bi-weekly, and Farish will not get $250,000 in deferred compensation he would have received under his old contract when he left in 2012.
He will retain his position as a full-time tenured professor in biology for the 2011-12 academic year but will be considered on sabbatical. He will not be paid for that position, worth about $140,000, but is eligible for benefits as provided to full-time tenured faculty, unless he takes another job that provides health benefits.
NJ.com reports Farish announced in October that he would step down from his post in June 2012, choosing not to renew his $300,000 contract. Board Chairwoman Helene Reed said the agreement is confidential and she declined comment except to say that there will be a "transition team" led by trustees Robert Poznek and Lawrence DiVietro Jr.
Rowan University Senate President Eric Milou, a math professor, said the agreement had nothing to do with Farish's ability to lead the college, saying it was all personal disagreements, pettiness and politics.
Paul Tyahla, executive director of the Common Sense Institute of New Jersey, said such buyouts seem to have become more common, but that doesn't make them right. He said it will cost the full tuition and fees of 25 students each year to cover the cost of the buyout.
Farish has applied for the president's job at Bowling Green State College in Ohio, according to the Cleveland Plain Dealer. There are 26 other candidates, the paper said last month.
According to the Courier Post, Farish has led the state university since 1998 and has overseen a major expansion, adding campus buildings and working with local officials and developers to improve downtown Glassboro.
