Cleveland State University paid former president Ronald Berkman $337,500 this year to serve as a special advisor to the university’s provost.
The money he was paid was on par with some of the highest earning administrators at the university in 2024, according to records reviewed by Signal Ohio.
That’s nearly $7,700 higher than Provost Nigamanth Sridhar’s current salary. University officials said Berkman’s current role had the pair working together on a “variety of topics,” though they did not specify what that work included.
Officials said this was a one-year contract role. The university said Berkman will “fully retire” from Cleveland State by Dec. 31.
Cleveland State’s Berkman first retired in 2018
Berkman, Cleveland State’s sixth president, retired from the university’s top spot in 2018.
But he didn’t leave. Officials said he kept a tenured faculty role in the Maxine Goodman Levin School of Urban Affairs after that, per his presidential contract. That can be one of several post-presidential perks often tucked into those agreements.
The university said Berkman officially retired from that position last December. Officials then gave him this deal for the current role.
His retirement coincides with the end of a roller coaster year for Cleveland State, one that included offering buyouts to staff and faculty as the university looked to right-size itself given its current total enrollment of about 14,000 students.
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