Board approves 5-year contract for U of M president-designate Cunningham

The University of Minnesota Board of Regents has approved a contract for the system’s next president.

The regents formally approved the deal for Rebecca Cunningham unanimously at Friday’s meeting, 11 days after selecting her as the system’s 18th president.

According to board documents, Cunningham will get a five-year deal, running from July 1, 2024 through June 30, 2029. As part of that deal, she’ll get a base salary of $975,000, plus annual increases, as well as standard benefits and yearly supplemental retirement dividends starting at $120,000 and ranging up to $150,000 in 2029 for a total of $675,000.

Cunningham’s base salary is above the average for Big Ten system heads ($896,238), according to market data included in the board documents, and the contract calls for her salary to increase by at least 3.5% each year. That would put her base salary above $1.1 million in the final year of her contract. Factoring in her benefits, the value of her deal is just above the 75th percentile in the conference.

The board chose Cunningham — the vice president for research and innovation at the University of Michigan — on Feb. 26 after narrowing the pool to three finalists earlier last month. The university says 46 candidates were recruited initially.

Former Hormel CEO Jeff Ettinger has been serving as the university’s president in an interim role since Joan Gabel left the U of M to become the chancellor at the University of Pittsburgh last summer.

Cunningham has said some of her initial priorities will be around the health system and campus safety, two topics that have been at the forefront of discussion around the U of M over the past year.