David Petraeus, the retired four-star general and former CIA director who resigned in the wake of a sex scandal last November, may soon be $200,000 richer thanks to a ridiculously cushy teaching gig at the City University of New York. Gawker reports:
In April, CUNY announced that Petraeus would do a stint as a visiting professor of public policy at the school’s Macaulay Honors College, leading a seminar on “developments that could position the United States…to lead the world out of the current global economic slowdown.” According to documents Gawker obtained from CUNY via a Freedom of Information Law request, the fallen war architect will net a whopping $200,000 a year for the course, which will total about three hours of work, aided by a group of graduate students to take care of “course research, administration, and grading.” (He will also throw in two lectures.)
That works out to approximately $2,250 per hour. CUNY adjuncts usually earn less than $3,000 per course.
Intriguingly, CUNY has not actually raised the money necessary to hire Petraeus, though the university has yet to retract its offer or lower its sum.
Petraeus already holds a teaching position at the University of Southern California, and he was clearly reluctant to bring his brand to CUNY. In one email uncovered by Gawker, Petraeus writes:
The truth is that I could have had gotten more money or more prestigious places (you won’t believe what USC will pay per week) but [CUNY’s chancellor] convinced me that this was the principal place to teach.
The retired general has also secured a job offer from Harvard’s Kennedy School—where he first met Paula Broadwell in 2006.
