STLCC pays Myrtle Dorsey six figures even during career-ending absence
By: JAKE HUNN
Graphics Editor
President, Ex-Chancellor and Principal are just a few speculations that STLCC students have made as to just who Myrtle Dorsey is. Others have not the slightest clue about Dorsey’s position. Dorsey is the Chancellor of St. Louis Community College.
This begs the question: Who is Dennis Michaelis? Even fewer students know the answer to that.
Michaelis is the interim chancellor of STLCC. It does not take a semester of college algebra to piece together the conclusion that we have two chancellors, and well paid ones at that.
Why have two chancellors? Is it to divide up the heavy workload? Not exactly. Dorsey took leave in September for an undetermined reason. However, Dorsey continues to receive $195,000 of her $224,000 salary and will continue to do so until June of 2014.
Meanwhile, Michaelis is also being paid a salary of $224,000 to fulfill the duties that once belonged to Dorsey. Essentially, Dorsey is being paid nearly her full salary to do nothing for the college. In fact, Dorsey is currently not even in the state of Missouri. Chief of the board of trustees Craig Larson states that the college owes Dorsey the remainder of her salary due to a contractual obligation. Larson said, “It’s what happens when you have somebody on a contract and they don’t fulfill the three years.”
Fox 2’s Elliott Davis seems to think that taxpayers are the financial victims of STLCC’s irresponsible handling of the situation. However, who is really paying off Dorsey’s contract as she skips town for a leave of absence? Davis failed to mention the students of STLCC who pay thousands of dollars each semester on their education. For most of us this is large sum of money that still only amounts to a small fraction of Dorsey’s yearly salary. It is an injustice to students that the college continues to pay Dorsey despite the fact that she is currently doing absolutely nothing for the college.
Larson claims that Dorsey is still available to assist Interim Chancellor Michaelis. Larson’s claim sounds great on paper, but how can Dorsey assist Michaelis at STLCC while she is not even in state? In reality, Dorsey is being paid roughly $144,000 more than the average working American to leave her job unfinished. To provide some perspective, the remainder of Dorsey’s yearly contract is costing the college nearly four times the median yearly salary of the average American. For the $195,000 that Dorsey is being paid during her absence, one could pay for nearly 175 full-time (12 credit hours) semesters at STLCC, assuming tuition remained at $93 per credit hour. Realistically, most of us are enrolled in more than twelve credit hours and have trouble paying for even four semesters, if it is possible to even graduate in that time.
Perhaps the most frustrating aspect of Dorsey’s unjust leave of absence is that there is little we can do about it as students. The only action we can take is to ensure that we have our facts straight about the situation. In the future it would be right and just for the students who keep STLCC open to have a say and ensure that the college makes more responsible financial decisions in the future
STUDENTS WEIGH IN
