Coach’s Salary

I noticed with interest in Sports on Oct. 22 that the salary for Steve Lavin, UCLA’s basketball coach, would be $2.375 million over the next five years, or $475,000 per year. In my mail at UCLA the UC Academic Senate publication, Notice, reported that the UC faculty is being asked to carry half ($6 million) of a $12-million budget reduction for the UC system by having a pay increase deferred for one month.

After 24 years of teaching at UCLA (Steve Lavin is 33 years old), I make about $62,000 as a full professor, for a single-income family of three, about 13% of Lavin’s salary. This is the second time I have taken a pay cut to help bail out the University of California and Gov. Pete Wilson, even though I barely make ends meet in my family.

Don’t get me wrong--I don’t want Lavin’s job and don’t deserve his salary. On the other hand, it is clear what the priorities are in California, in the UC system and at UCLA, and they do not include the teaching faculty.

HENRY A. HESPENHEIDE

Biology Dept., UCLA