The OU football team isn't the only No.1 ranked program at OU. The OU School of Meteorology has a few number No. 1 programs of its own.

The meteorology school is ranked No. 1 in the nation in mesoscale and severe storms research and is among the top seven programs overall.

Rewarding No. 1 programs is not an easy task, with a national unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, and the stock market in what U.S. President George W. Bush has called a hangover after the economic binge of the 1990s, .

At a time when the economy has taken a turn for the worse, two of the top draws to OU are not seeing equal treatment in the form of salaries.

In June, the OU Board of Regents approved salary increases for employees working in both departments. But the athletic department saw greater gains than the School of Meteorolgy.

Even though the meteorology school has had such success, it is not reaping the rewards in the form of salary raises, said Frederick Carr, meteorology school director.

Neither are many other departments in the university.

"The transition from one fiscal year to the next is the traditional time for the athletic department to make their salary recommendations," said Nancy Mergler, senior vice president and provost.

Mergler said she was not worried about teachers leaving because athletics is not funded by the OU budget.

The OU budget was up this year. But with the increase in cost of insurance and other expenses, the new money was not enough to give OU faculty and staff raises for the first time in seven years, said OU President David Boren in a letter written to all faculty and staff in early June.

Fifty-three OU employees received pay increases for the 2003 fiscal year, according to the June OU Board of Regents meeting minutes.

Twenty-four of those employees work in either the School of Meteorology or one of the three centers affiliated with the school, according to the minutes. The raises total $114,239. That averages about $5,000 for each employee. Research grants fund 22 of the raises.

Sixteen coaches and athletic director Joe Castiglione received a total of $226,600 in base salary raises, averaging about $13,000 for each person, according to the minutes.

Six coaches received a total of $483,000 in supplemental salary raises, averaging $80,500 per coach, according to the minutes. Supplemental salary comes from outside compensation from unrestricted private funds. Some coaches received both a base and supplemental salary increase.

Jethro Gaede, anthropology graduate teaching assistant, said students do not come here to sit in the stadium seven days a week. They come to get an education at OU.

Many students do come to OU to get an education, and many more excel.

The meteorology school is no different.

Carr said the quality of graduate students compares to the quality of recruits the football team brings in - top notch.

"We get the best graduate students in the country," said Frederick Carr, director of the School of Meteorology.

For example, seven recent doctorate graduates of the meteorology school have become professors in top U.S. and international universities, Carr said.

Erin Elder, social work junior, said she first thought OU was putting sports before education when she learned that some of OU's top coaches were receiving pay raises.

"But then I realized OU wouldn't really do that. These funds have to be coming from somewhere else, like private donors or something," Elder said. " I really don't think the university would consciously put sports above education."

Elder is right.

The OU athletic department allows some coaches to earn more than just the state funded salary through outside contracts. This supplemental income is determined by the team's performance, Castiglione said.

For example, head football coach Bob Stoops will make $2.1 million this year, his base salary is $200,000. However, $1.9 million of his salary is from supplemental income.

The meteorology department and all other academic departments have the opportunity to gain supplemental income. But meteorology faculty have a 25 percent cap on the amount of money a professors can earn above their base salary.

Meteorology faculty combined can only make a maximum of $301,463 in supplemental income, according to the 2002 fiscal year budget.

Claude Duchon earned $76,645 during the 2002 fiscal year. The professor of meteorology who specializes in precipitation climatology had the opportunity to earn as much as $19,161.25 in supplemental income.

The reason the university limits faculty earnings is so professors will not split their loyalties between teaching and outside work such as consulting on their area of expertise, Carr said.

Kelvin Droegemeier, regents professor of meteorology and director of the Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms, said he performs private consulting for American Airlines and the National Transportation and Safety Board. He also owns stock in a private company spun out of OU, Weather Decision Technology.

"My last check was $15 from royalties," Droegemeier said. "You don't make a killing off that, and that's not the intent."

The meteorology school along with its three research centers, (Center for Analysis and Prediction of Storms; Oklahoma Climatological Survey; and Cooperative Institute for Mesoscale Meteorological Studies) performs $15 million in research each year, Carr said. This averages to more than $800,000 per faculty member per year.

Carr said the money the meteorology school brings to the university comes from federal money through research grants and fellowships.

All the research money that goes into the meteorology school does not inflate the professors' salaries.

Base salaries are funded by the university.

When professors receive a research grant, the money from the grant substitutes what the university would pay them.

Similarities between the two departments do not stop with their rankings. Both athletic and meteorology departments have a similar amount of students involved in their programs.

The School of Meteorology has about 350 undergraduates and 80 graduate students, Carr said.

Seventy-five percent of meteorology students are from outside of Oklahoma, Carr said.

"It's a real brain gain for the university," Carr said referring to out-of-state meteorology students.

The athletic department, on the other hand, had about 475 students participating in athletics last year, said Christina Carter, athletic financial and scholarship coordinator.

Like the meteorology school, the athletic department has a high percentage of out-of-state student-athletes. Carter said 53 percent of the athletes at OU are not Oklahoma state residents.

But when it boils down it, some students think academics should take precedence over sports.

"OU football is great, but it's education that is going to save the world," said Jacob Melton, film and video studies sophomore.

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