A committee of Penn State University trustees Thursday afternoon approved a contract extension for the university’s athletic director, Sandy Barbour, whose initial five-year agreement expires this summer.
The compensation committee voted unanimously in its meeting on the main University Park campus. The deal, announced Friday, is retroactive to July 1, 2018, and runs through the 2022-23 academic year. Ms. Barbour will also assume the title of vice president for intercollegiate athletics.
Ms. Barbour's salary of just under $721,000 made her the seventh highest salaried employee at Penn State other than officers, directors and other key leaders, according a required Right-to-Know law disclosure made by the university in May.
Ahead of her were: head football coach James Franklin, $1.5 million; Robert Harbaugh, chair of the Department of Neurosurgery $1,001,122; Peter Dillon, Chair of the Department of Surgery, $901,805; Kevin Black, chair of Orthopaedics/Rehabilitation $852,287; John Myers, staff physician Pediatric Surgery $830,607; and Alan Brechbill, executive director Milton S. Hershey Medical Center, $734,956.
Officials with the university did not offer specifics about any compensation increase.
“I am very appreciative of President Barron’s and the Board of Trustees’ confidence in my leadership and their steadfast belief in intercollegiate athletics as a powerful and positive influence on our institution and community,” Ms. Barbour said in a statement. “It has been a privilege and an honor to lead this program the last four-plus years, and I look forward to the great work that lies ahead on behalf of student-athlete development and success. I am fortunate to get to work every day with the most talented coaches and staff in the country and the most passionate alumni, donors and fans ever known to mankind. Our future is limitless!”
Ms. Barbour's initial five-year contract was set to run to this summer. In December, she told reporters in Orlando that she had reached an agreement with the university to extend her tenure.
She commented that she never was concerned that she and Penn State President Eric Barron would be unable to reach an agreement.
“There was no urgency for me, no urgency for Dr. Barron,” she said. “We knew it would get done.”
Bill Schackner: bschackner@post-gazette.com, 412-263-1977 and on Twitter:@Bschackner
Editor’s note, posted Feb. 22, 2019: This story was updated to reflect new information regarding the length of Ms. Barbour’s contract.
First Published: February 21, 2019, 8:26 p.m.
