Northern Arizona University President Rita Cheng’s compensation could hit $700,000

Northern Arizona University President Rita Cheng’s compensation could hit $700,000 in 2017 if she meets performance goals set by the Arizona Board of Regents, according to a story in the Arizona Daily Sun written by Ms. Michelle McManimon. Click here to read the entire story.

Cheng receives $390,000 as her annual salary. Her housing, car allowances and pension plan contributions bring the total annual value of her compensation to about $520,000 a year. In addition to the salary and related contributions, the Board of Regents included a number of bonus clauses in her contract.

If the goals included in the bonus clauses are all met, it is estimated by the Arizona Daily Sun that by 2017 she could receive around $700,000. Some of the goals related to bonuses include the following:  a performance incentive payment of $10,000 if Cheng puts together a “high quality and effective” leadership team by July 1, 2015; $15,000 for reaching out to Arizona’s Native American communities and developing a plan to increase Native American student success rates; retaining at least 75 percent of NAU’s freshmen class in 2016-17, spending at least $39.2 million on research, awarding at least 4,625 bachelor’s degrees and having at least 3,200 community college transfer students enroll at NAU. An additional $10,000 bonus will be awarded if more than 43.2 percent of graduating seniors rate their entire educational experience at NAU as “excellent” on their senior surveys.

Other  incentives, according to the newspaper article,  require that “Cheng implement a plan to manage the growth of NAU’s extended campuses and Personalized Learning degree program, demonstrate the growth and financial stability of NAU’s allied health programs at the Phoenix Biomedical Campus, and personally lead efforts that substantially increase the amount of resources NAU brings in outside of tuition and research grants.”