Tommy Norment: W&M’s Highest Paid Adjunct Prof

Tommy Norment. Photo credit: Daily Press.

The $60,000 a year that state Sen. Tommy Norment, R-Williamsburg, gets paid by the College of William & Mary makes him the highest-paid adjunct faculty working for the university, according to Travis Fain with the Daily News.

One hundred and fifty-five W&M adjunct faculty are paid less than $10,000 a  year. Of the 44 faculty members who get more, pay averaged $19,300. Writes Fain, who based his data data obtained through the Freedom of Information Act: Norment “makes more than judges who moonlight as professors, more than William and Mary adjuncts who manage campus legal assistance clinics and more than a long list of part-time professors outside the law school who have distinguished resumes in their fields.”

W&M spokesman Brian Whitson said that likening Norment’s compensation with that of other adjunct faculty members was an “apples and oranges” comparison. In addition to his teaching duties, Norment, who serves as Senate Majority Leader, advises W&M president Taylor Reveley on university matters.

Norment spiked several bills during the last session that would have limited tuition increases at Virginia’s public universities and affected their governance structures. Between the 2006-2007 academic year and the 2015-2016 academic year, the cost of attendance (tuition, fees, room, board, other expenses) at W&M increased 75%, outpacing the 53% rise for all public four-year institutions by a wide margin, according to data collected by the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia.