New WSU president Kirk Schulz will be paid $625,000 a year

Kirk Schulz has been confirmed as Washington State University’s new president and will receive a five-year contract with a base salary of $625,000 per year, the school’s board of regents decided Friday.

The regents also agreed to give Schulz an additional retention incentive of $25,000 per year. The contract stipulates that he and his family will be provided with a house in Pullman and a condominium in the Seattle area.

Schulz is currently president of Kansas State University. He was chosen last month to replace Elson Floyd, who died of complications from cancer last year at age 59.

Schulz will take over as WSU’s president on June 13. He also will teach engineering at the school.

The contract included his appointment to the WSU faculty, under which he will become a full professor with the university’s Voiland College of Engineering and Architecture upon completion of the school’s tenure process.

His wife, Noel, also will become an engineering professor at WSU.

Schulz, 52, is a Virginia native who graduated in 1991 from Virginia Tech with a doctorate in chemical engineering. He worked as a professor at the University of North Dakota, Michigan State and Mississippi State. He has led Kansas State since 2009.

Schulz also is chairman of the NCAA Board of Governors, the association’s highest-ranking decision-making body.

He was introduced to the WSU community this month during a tour of the state.

Floyd, who served as president of the university for eight years, earned a base pay of $775,000 at the end of his tenure. Including deferred compensation, Floyd made $877,250 in 2014. That put him among the nation’s highest-paid public university presidents.