Mark Yudof’s new pay grade, in pancakes

States with bigger higher ed budgets use their comparatively full purses to lure top university talent — whether presidents or professors — away from other states’ systems. Exhibit A is Mark Yudof, who nearly doubled his compensation when he gave up the presidency at the University of Minnesota to be chancellor at the University of Texas five years ago. Now Yudof will make even more as president at the University of California: $828,000.

How much is that in pancakes? A major part of Yudof’s charm offensive upon his arrival in Minnesota in 1998 was his professed love of pancakes. Within months of taking office, he presided over the university’s first “Golden Gopher Pancake Cookoff” (pictured), and he made highly publicized tours of the Twin Cities in search of the perfect pancake. He found his favorite at the Town Talk Diner in Minneapolis, which has since gone gourmet under new ownership but still offers pancakes from the old recipe at $8 a pop.

The U of M hired Yudof at $225,000, but with repeated raises from the Board of Regents he was earning $350,000 by the time he left in 2002. That put him on a trajectory to get, had he stayed, a cool $500,000 by now. At the Town Talk, that’s 62,500 pancake platters — enough for Paul Bunyan but apparently not for Mark Yudof. In Berkeley, he’ll find flapjacks at Bette’s Oceanview Diner that are so good the mix sells nationwide; hot off the grill at the diner, they go for $5.50. At Yudof’s new pay grade (mind you, this involves cashing out free housing), he could eat his way through 150,545 platefuls. So add a pancake gap to cold weather and inconsistent funding on the list of factors hampering Minnesota in the public university staffing sweepstakes.