Council OKs negotiation of new contract for URI president

PROVIDENCE — The state Council on Postsecondary Education on Wednesday voted unanimously to authorize council chairman Bill Foulkes to “negotiate the renewal” of University of Rhode Island president David M. Dooley’s contract, according to Robin McGill, public information and communications specialist with the Office of Postsecondary Commissioner.

The vote followed an executive session held during the council’s meeting at Rhode Island College. Foulkes and Dooley will now discuss terms; an agreement would not require approval of the full council.

Dooley, who has led URI since becoming the school’s 11th president in July 2009, is in the final year of a three-year contract approved in May 2014. That contract includes a $10,000 annual raise, which brought his salary to $350,000 this year.

Under the terms of the existing contract, some or all of Dooley’s salary increase could be deferred into his employer-paid supplemental retirement annuity.

Dooley came to URI after serving for 10 years as provost and vice president for Academic Affairs at Montana State University, in Bozeman, Mont., where he raised the research profile of the school. Prior to being provost, Dooley, a California native who holds a doctoral degree in chemistry, headed Montana State Bozeman’s Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry.

H i s t e n u r e i n R h o d e Island has been marked by a significant increase in URI’s research programs in many fields, and expansion of the school’s presence beyond its main campus in South Kingstown, notably in Providence, where the university is soon to open a nursing education center, with Rhode Island College, at South Street Landing.

—gwmiller@ providence-journal.com

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