ISU’s president will be putting money back into the school this year.

President Gregory Geoffroy will be donating his yearly pay raise to a university fellowship as part of his investing in people campaign.

The Board of Regents approved a 2.5 percent pay raise for all Regent university presidents, bringing Geoffroy’s salary to $281,875.

Geoffroy and his wife pledged $150,000 for the creation of this fellowship, said John McCarroll, director of university relations.

Soon after he began as president, Geoffroy set up the campaign to provide financial support to faculty and students, McCarroll said.

“It is truly an investment in people,” McCarroll said.

The additional $6,875 from this year’s raise will go towards the Geoffroy Family Fellowship.

“We obviously need to add more to it,” Geoffroy said. “We will add this year’s salary increase plus additional funds to help bring that level up to what we originally targeted.”

The fellowship was set up so funds could be added over time to reach the target amount, said Jim Brehm, senior director of development for the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. “[Geoffroy’s] commitment is a pledge, so that’s payable over time.”

The fellowship, announced last October by the Geoffroys, is intended to support the teaching and research of an assistant professor during his or her first three years at Iowa State in the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, Brehm said.

The college was chosen because of the Geoffroy’s direct connection to the college.

“It’s only because it’s the college that has my discipline in it as well as my wife’s,” Geoffroy said.

His background is chemistry and his wife’s is mathematics.

The Geoffroys specified that the fellowship be for younger faculty, Brehm said.

“The fellowship could potentially be offered as part of a recruitment incentive,” Brehm said.

Setting up a fellowship does not make money immediately available for use. Within the next six months to a year, the money could be used for its intended purpose, he said.

“It’s getting to the point now where we can begin to make distributions,” Brehm said.

Though budgets are tight, there are still faculty positions open, Brehm said.

“There will be faculty that will be hired this year, and are being hired,” he said. “We’re not in a hiring freeze.”

Setting up a fellowship is not a typical thing for a university president to do, Brehm said.

“It’s a really generous statement for the president to make,” he said.

The original paperwork was signed in September 2001, just two months after Geoffroy took office in July, Brehm said.

The University of Iowa’s Interim President Willard “Sandy” Boyd will send a percentage of his raise to the University of Iowa and a percentage to the Iowa City community. The University of Northern Iowa’s president was unavailable for comment.