A new audit of Gallaudet University has shown that administrative salary rose by 107% ($11.3 million) while overall spending on academics, including faculty salaries, fell by 6% ($4.8 million) since 2019.
Gallaudet University
The audit – funded by the Gallaudet chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) and conducted by Dr. Howard Bunsis, an accounting professor at Eastern Michigan University – calls into question Gallaudet's claims of fiscal hardship, which have been used to explain stagnant faculty and staff pay, the closure of academic programs, and the downsizing of scholarships and stipends.
“The evidence is clear that Gallaudet has very high and increasing administrative costs,” Bunsis writes about the private university that educates the deaf and hard of hearing.
The school also spends $30-40 million on consultants yearly, a substantial portion of the school’s total budget, according to the report.
In response to these findings, the Gallaudet AAUP Chapter is calling for the school to trim administration, reduce administrative costs, decrease consultant spending, reinvest in academics and faculty salaries, and improve transparency and accountability.
