When David Petraeus signed on to teach a course at the City University of New York honors college this year, it was a win for both the publicly funded urban college and the disgraced former CIA director. But after Gawker revealed that CUNY was paying the retired Army general $200,000 a year to teach one course, it turned into a bit of a scandal.
After initial criticism, CUNY scaled back the general’s pay to $150,000.
Now, the New York Times is reporting that Petraeus will make just $1.
The claim that his salary would be mostly paid by a private donor just wasn’t flying with critics.
"It is obscene for a university that operates on a bare bones budget to pay anyone $150,000 for a single course per semester,"said Barbara Bowen, president of the CUNY professors labor union. "Every dollar raised at CUNY, whether from public or private sources, should go to providing broad access to a quality education."
Petraeus is slated to teach a course called “Are We on the Threshold of the North American Decade?” It will meet one day a week for three hours, and have grad students to help him in his duties.
The median salary for a non-tenured professor in the CUNY system is $47,500.
“Once controversy arose about the amount he was being paid, he decided it was much more important to keep the focus on the students, on the school and on the teaching, and not have it be about the money,” Robert Barnett, Petraeus’ lawyer, told the New York Times.