Departing University of Colorado president Betsy Hoffman has expressed interest in teaching economics at the Denver campus, and the university is preparing an offer to keep her on as a professor.
Hoffman, who resigned after a year of scandals that exploded on her watch, is interested in teaching at the Graduate School of Public Affairs at CU-Denver, the head of the economics department in Boulder said Monday.
Hoffman still isn’t saying what her plans are.
“She continues to weigh all of her options as to what she plans to do, including remaining on the faculty,” Hoffman’s spokeswoman, Michele McKinney, said.
Incoming CU president Hank Brown, who takes over Aug. 1, said that the university is preparing to offer Hoffman a teaching position and that he hopes she takes it.
“She’s a distinguished scholar,” he said. “I think it would be a real plus for the university to have her stay.”
Hoffman will announce her decision by the beginning of August, McKinney said.
Hoffman is interested in teaching graduate students at CU-Denver, said Keith Maskus, chair of the economics department in Boulder. Maskus said he and Todd Gleeson, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, discussed an offer for Hoffman last week.
“She’s welcome to teach economics for us at any time,” Maskus said. “We’d love to have her.”
Gleeson was traveling Monday and unavailable for comment. Maskus said he was not involved in setting Hoffman’s salary.
The offer is in its beginning stages and not finalized, McKinney said. She didn’t know how much Hoffman would earn as a professor.
The offer probably would not bind Hoffman to stay more than a year, Brown said, leaving an opening for her to take a job as president of another university.
Hoffman has said she most likely would seek another university presidency or become an advocate for public education.
Brown didn’t know whether Hoffman would accept the offer.
“I don’t have a final word on that,” he said.
Hoffman resigned in March after she was pounded over allegations of sexual misconduct in the university’s football recruiting program, a professor who compared Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist victims to a leading Nazi and a tuition increase that pitted her against the governor.
Speculation about Hoffman’s future has churned since her resignation. As president, she has a tenured position at CU in the economics department.
The offer letter she received when she took the presidency calculated her salary as an economics professor as the average of the top one-third of the CU economics faculty, plus 10 percent.
Hoffman, CU’s 20th president, came to Boulder in September 2000 from the University of Illinois at Chicago, where she was provost and vice chancellor. She taught economics at the University of Arizona, the University of Wyoming, Northwestern University and Purdue University.
Staff writer Jennifer Brown can be reached at 303-820-1593 or jenbrown@denverpost.com.
