SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Matier and Ross on Ted Lieu's CSU pay efforts

Teaching moment: The decision by California State University trustees to freeze the six-figure salaries of incoming presidents was as much about self-preservation as it was about money.

It's one thing to have headline-hunting state senators such as Ted Lieu and San Francisco's Leland Yee on your case for spending big on execs while hiking tuition and freezing teachers' pay, but it's quite another when both the governor and state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg come out swinging against presidents' raises.

And when the Senate recently refused to re-up the term of CSU board Chairman Herb Carter, who supported the raises, but confirmed the reappointment of Steve Glazer, who opposed them - trustees got the message.

"How many times can you keep shooting yourself in the foot before you realize it hurts?" was how one trustee summed up the decision.

And with six more CSU president jobs opening up in the coming year, the bad press and attacks "were just going to repeat themselves, over and over," the trustee said.

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/05/06/BAOU1ODKMB.DTL#ixzz1uIUYZdKH