WKU Executive Committee Of Regents Board Approves Head Football Coach Willie Targgart's New Contract. We Hope The Full Board Follows Suit.

WKU committee OKs Taggart deal
It will go before full Board of Regents in January
By LAUREL WILSON

Western Kentucky University head football coach Willie Taggart’s new contract is one step closer to being official.

The executive committee of WKU’s Board of Regents unanimously approved the contract at its meeting Friday, meaning it will go before the entire board at the next regular meeting Jan. 20.

Taggart’s new contract, the details of which were revealed Dec. 7, more than doubles his base salary to $475,000 and would make him the highest-paid employee at the university.

During the executive committee’s meeting, athletic director Ross Bjork asked board members to approve the contract. He said a raise for Taggart is necessary to continue the momentum of this football season and build a productive program.

Taggart led WKU’s football team to the biggest single-season turnaround in Sun Belt Conference history, finishing the 2011 campaign with a 7-5 overall record after starting the season 0-4.

At Friday’s meeting, Faculty Regent Patti Minter, an associate history professor, asked the board to support giving faculty merit raises. Minter isn’t on the executive committee, but addressed members before the vote.

“What this contract represents is the biggest merit raise in university history,” Minter said.

From the faculty’s perspective, the only way to counter that is for them to get raises as well. Faculty members received only a 1 percent raise this year and haven’t had a merit raise since 2008.

“WKU has to make the academic mission and the faculty that execute it a priority ... if it’s to call itself a leading American university,” Minter said. “That is a distinction you can only have when you reward faculty excellence.”

She said she can sum up the dozens of faculty comments she’s received about Taggart’s raise with one word: demoralizing. She used sports language to describe the situation faculty members are in.

“The bottom line is, if we don’t reward our players, we can’t have a successful season, and the team’s not feeling too good right now,” Minter said.