Exclusive: It’s Black Monday as Cleveland sacks its stars
NewsThe faculty senate at Cleveland Institute of Music is holding an extraordinary meeting today after the CIM’s administration have told senior teachers that their salaries will be cut by as much as two-thirds in order to manage a $1.6 million tuition deficit. Apparently, parents and potential students have noticed that the CIM has been in turmoil over the past couple of years and decided to go elsewhere.
Sources tell slippedisc.com that Sharon Robinson and Jaime Laredo have decided to leave CIM rather than take a pay cut.
Other names are hovering by the exits.
Last month, President Paul Hogle added $180,000 to his own pay packet, which tops $700k.
Apparently at student orientation, Paul Hogle’s wife told the student body ‘feel free to contact me if you wish to pray together’.
Why hasn’t the obvious been done well before now?
The power of his wife’s prayer….for that paycheck.
Pray for new management. The whole story is an absolute disaster and has been ever since SD began reporting about it.
I have been praying for a change daily. Nothing is going to happen sadly. The whole board is so far up Hogle’s ass.
Cutting salaries of teachers who can’t fill their studios because administration couldn’t raise enough money to give students financial aid that competes with other schools
When will they finally admit that hiring Paul Hogle was a catastrophic mistake? CIM, formerly a great school, is now the laughing stock of the musical world.
Mr. Hogle recently posted this on LinkedIn:
“The last academic year was the single most successful fundraising year in the storied history of the Cleveland Institute of Music with more than $10 million committed for annual, scholarship, and capital purposes.
Bravo tutti to the trustees, governing members, foundations, and the state of Ohio, who pledged more than $2 million in just the past few months for the Kulas Hall renovation project.”
Where did it all go?
To admin salaries clearly!!
Auditorium?
While I understand the sentiment, it’s tricky because donated funds can have rules stipulated by the donor. A lot of that $10 mil was raised specifically for the Kulas Renovation and as such, can’t be used towards other projects.
The real issue is Scott and Paul taking raises for a combined total of almost $360,000 after issuing hiring freezes, doing layoffs in 2023, and telling all staff and faculty they could not have a cost of living increase in their salaries for the last two years, in addition to the pay cuts/freezes they are making to faculty now. Where did that $360,000 come from and where could it have been used more productively is the question.
praying with Paul Hogle’s wife but for his downfall
You know, if I were to invent a way to gut a school and extract all of its resources before walking away (seconds before it all implodes), this might be the way I do that.
And to quote Lisa Simpson, “Prayer; the last refuge of a scoundrel.” I can picture this charlatan doing his thing with very little trouble.
Confusing and misleading headline. Did Jaime Laredo and Sharon Robinson decide to leave or were they ‘sacked’ as the headline puts it? Given that they are among the highest paid individuals at the school, was it unreasonable for the institution to ask them to consider a paycut in the face of a budget deficit? The raise that CIM’s president, Paul Hogle received ‘last month’ – where does this information come from? Sourced perhaps from tax form 990 published on Propublica which reflects financial data from 2 years ago! The CIM community were informed today that senior leadership took voluntary pay cuts. There is a massive amount of misinformation peddled on this site and it is stunning to see otherwise reasonable people assume it to be fact…..somewhat akin to viewers of Alex Jones’s infowars using that medium with which to curate their political views….
The voluntary pay cuts by senior leadership cannot be confirmed. The CIM community was also informed in the same message about benefits reductions for all full-time employees, but senior leadership won’t tell the CIM community what that means other than that nothing is official yet. Guessing the pay cuts are unofficial too, and will likely remain that way. If you want to talk about misinformation, look no further than the ramblings of Paul Hogle and the CIM propaganda machine.
Mr and Mrs Laredo have a combined age of almost 160 years. Maybe there is more to it than money.
Yes, born 1941 and 1949 respectively. Most people around that age are considering retirement (if they can afford it); the salary cut may have been the determining factor.
having worked closely with the two of them as recently as last year as a student, I can confidently say that their age is in not affecting their teaching. they are passionate about teaching and do all they can to help their students succeed. losing the both of them is a devastating blow to the violin, cello, and chamber music departments.
When Hogle is done riding this ship to the bottom of its proverbial ocean, he’ll be a multi millionaire.
Losing Robinson and Laredo? Hogle should fall on his sword. Or be pushed onto it.
Who on earth was supporting this Hogle clown in his battle with the students who walked out on their conductor …..
His equally tone deaf and complicit Board of Trustees, THAT’s who!
Compensational pyramid scheme courtesy of greedy, self- preservational wokerati. And this institutional model is all very prevalent across higher education institutions here in America.
Well, fervently wishing the faculty a successful vote to unionize in the next month. It is absolutely clear they need further bulwarks against this terrible management.
https://internationalmusician.org/cleveland-institute-of-music-faculty-and-local-4-prepare-for-union-vote/
I just tell people I have a degree from case western at this point. Embarrassed to say I went there. Wish they would take my photo down from the alumni achievement hallway gallery.
Case is not doing much better, sadly.
Same here! As an alumnus, I just tell people that I attended CWRU, and I did not send my picture, for the achievement hallway gallery! Very sad to see CIM having these types of problems!
There used to be a cello festival here in Dallas that that would bring in notable players to do master classes in the morning and recitalize in the evening.
Unlike the other A-listers, CIM cello teacher Melissa Kraut was not pursuing a career as a major orchestra principal or touring soloist.
However, unlike the other A-listers, she was able to quickly diagnose a problem in her master class students and devise a solution that worked. Her students were obviously getting a better result after their half-hour.
The other A-listers… not so much.
If she is looking for a new place to land, a school with cello players who want to sound better would do well to snap her up.
Clearly CIM has been hijacked by a pack of shameless thieves! Nothing short of legal intervention can save this institution. Or perhaps they should hire Donald Trump to incite a January 6th-style attack on CIM.
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