$300K Combined Salaries for Granholm and Mulhern at Cal-Berkeley

Former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm and her husband will each teach two classes at the University of California-Berkeley in 2011 as part of a combined $300,000 deal, according to documents released by the school in response to a Michigan Capitol Confidential freedom of information request.

In an Aug. 12 letter sent to Granholm and her husband Dan Mulhern announcing the appointments, Berkeley Law School Dean Christopher Edley Jr. wrote: “We propose that each of you teach two courses or seminars per year, and have active affiliations with one or more policy research centers.”

Edley added: “In addition, University policies will permit you to devote substantial time to outside consulting or other compensated activity, as well as your summers.”

California, like Michigan, has for many years been facing persistent gaps between what politicians wish to spend and the tax revenue coming in to the state. Gov. Jerry Brown and the state’s politicians are currently attempting to resolve an estimated gap of $25.4 billion.

Granholm and Mulhern will have more going on than just teaching courses. They have also joined the Keppler Speakers Bureau in Washington, D.C., according to Granholm spokeswoman Liz Boyd. And they are writing a book on Granholm’s experience as the Michigan governor. Granholm will be a regular contributor to NBC’s “Meet the Press.”

The appointments could be renewed for two years at any time in 2011, the letter said.

The average annual salary for a full professor at California-Berkeley was $146,000, according to a 2009-10 survey done by the American Association of University Professors.  

Boyd wrote Wednesday in an e-mail that Granholm and Mulhern “will be working with university officials to finalize their teaching schedules.”

Carole Polan, another spokeswoman for Granholm, said in an e-mail Tuesday that the only information she could provide was a link to the announcement made by Cal-Berkeley.

According to a Berkeley news release, Granholm will teach about state budgets, clean energy jobs and diversifying the economy at the Goldman School of Public Policy this spring. The spring semester begins April 4. In the fall, she will add a course on state budgeting and governing in times of fiscal crisis.

Mulhern won’t start teaching until late September of this year. He’ll teach a course in leadership at the Haas School of Business and a course on gender, work and leadership offered jointly by the Goldman School of Public Policy and the Berkeley Law School.

Granholm and Mulhern’s appointments happened during tough budgetary times for the school. The Associated Press reports that Chancellor Robert Birgeneau announced on Jan. 14 that the University of California-Berkeley would lay off about 150 employees this year. None of those laid off would be faculty.

At Berkeley, the fall semester runs from mid-August to mid-December and the spring semester goes from mid-January to mid-May.