Continuing to tiptoe back into public life, Eliot Spitzer has taken a gig as an adjunct professor of political science at the City College of New York.
Spitzer, a Democrat who resigned as governor of New York state in March 2008 after it was revealed that he patronized prostitutes, began teaching “Law and Public Policy” Tuesday.
Given Spitzer’s notoriety - “disgraced governor” is as glued to his name as “powerful” is to the House Ways and Means Committee - it’s not surprising that his entry into academe has stirred some controversy.
Eliot Spitzer
The flap is not about any past misdeeds. Rather, it’s about his pay.
Spitzer signed on as an adjunct professor, becoming one of many part-time teachers who work at a rate far below that of professors hired full time.
A spokesman for City College, which is part of the City University of New York, had said that Spitzer’s pay for the term, about $4,500, was “standard adjunct pay.”
Not so, several standard adjuncts and other interested parties told The New York Times.
It turned out that Spitzer’s hourly rate of $98.43 is at the high end of an adjunct scale that starts at $62.95 an hour for adjunct instructors.
The City College spokesman conceded this fact and said he had misspoken.
Spitzer, in turn, told the college he would donate his salary back to be used for scholarships.
He hadn’t wanted to be paid anyway, the spokesman said, but union rules prohibited Spitzer from working for free.
Spitzer already had a connection to City College as his father is a 1943 graduate of City College who went on to make millions as a real estate developer.
In 2008, Bernard Spitzer and his wife, Anne, give $25 million to the college’s architecture school. In honor of their gift, the college changed the school’s name to the Bernard and Anne Spitzer School of Architecture.
Earlier, the Spitzers had endowed the college’s Anne and Bernard Spitzer Chair in Political Science.
Eliot Spitzer’s three-hour undergraduate political science course meets once a week for 15 weeks.
According to the Times, Gregory H. Williams, the college president, had asked Spitzer if he would like to teach at the school.
Spitzer told the paper that he was “excited by the prospect” of teaching.
He also said that reports that he was considering a return to politics were “totally untrue.”
Spitzer has been weighing in on financial industry matters, both in television appearances and in occasional columns for Slate, the online magazine.
Last month in Slate, took on The Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Earlier, he analyzed the monetary troubles faced by state governments.
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