We can understand why CUNY would want to hire Paul Krugman from Princeton.
After all, Krugman is a Nobel laureate and New York Times columnist. As Bloomberg View’s Virginia Postrel notes, CUNY’s move is like any other brand hiring a big-name celebrity to create buzz. And CUNY did much the same thing when it contracted with Gen. David Petraeus to teach a weekly seminar at its honors college for $150,000 a year.
There are some key differences. Not only is Gen. Petraeus teaching CUNY students, he agreed to do it for a $1-a-year salary after a public outcry. Krugman — well, it’s not clear what he’s doing for his $225,000 a year plus expenses. Unlike Krugman, too, Petraeus hasn’t made a career out of whining that the rich earn too much.
As Gawker reported this week, CUNY told Krugman he “will not be expected to teach or supervise students” for the first year and will teach just a single seminar later. Instead, he will “be asked to contribute to the build-up” of a new center studying income inequality and to “play a modest role in our public events.”
For this, he’ll be named a distinguished professor, CUNY’s highest academic honor, bestowed on just 150 of its 7,500 faculty members. That will make him a member of CUNY’s top 2 percent. But his pay is nearly double that of tenured full professors, who presumably teach a full course load.
Any way you slice it, Krugman’s compensation puts him in a class far above most CUNY profs. And what better place to decry the market’s inequality than from a cushy gig at a taxpayer-funded university?