MSU President M. Peter McPherson may not have a background in academics - it was one of the controversies surrounding his hiring in 1993.

Still, more than seven years later, many say he’s served the university’s higher education well. He gives his eighth annual State of the University Address at 2:30 p.m. today in the Wharton Center’s Pasant Theatre.

“The job of the president of the university is not necessarily to control the details of academics,” said Bob Holm, chairman of the University Committee on Curriculum and an associate professor of pediatrics. “But he has been attentive to our needs and not done anything that I have seen personally that has caused problems for faculty.”

Others say they have noticed positive developments.

Norman Abeles, chairman of Academic Council and a professor of psychology, said he has seen improvements during McPherson’s presidency.

“From my perspective, I want to give credit to President McPherson for trying very hard to raise faculty salaries and to improve the work environment of faculty and staff,” Abeles said via e-mail.

But some faculty members aren’t so satisfied. MSU faculty salaries rank 9th lowest in the Big Ten and total compensation, which includes health care and pension benefits, puts MSU behind six other universities in the Big Ten.

And some professors blame McPherson, who initiated the tuition guarantee in 1993 in an effort to keep tuition increases at or below the projected cost of inflation.

But opponents of the plan say if MSU - which still doesn’t get as much state funding as the University of Michigan and Wayne State University - keeps the guarantee, it sacrifices the quality of education.

And Kenneth Harrow, a professor of English, said the guarantee policies have kept salaries too low.

“People will say it’s very hard for students and parents to pay for tuition, but MSU’s tuition is very low when compared with other universities,” he said. “If you lower our salaries, ultimately you lower the quality of the university and the long-term future of the students is affected by it.”

And McPherson, the former executive vice president of a San Francisco-based bank, has second-guessed the tuition guarantee’s effectiveness before.

But he said, the guarantee aside, there have been efforts to keep faculty salaries competitive.

“We’ve been able to increase salaries in the last few years a couple percent more than we’ve increased tuition,” he said. “The salary issue is one of which I continue to focus on.”

Since his arrival, McPherson has been insistent on limiting his own salary increases to 3 or 4 percent, an amount somewhat comparable to what other university employees have received. However, last year, the MSU Board of Trustees gave him a $25,000 bonus along with his standard pay boost.

The bonus, which critics say was inappropriate, was donated back to MSU by McPherson and his wife Joanne - who asked the money be used to plant 2,000 trees on south campus.

Meanwhile, MSU faculty salaries have increased 5 percent during the last two years.

Andrew Hogan, an associate professor of medicine, said McPherson has encouraged growth in research and academic innovation.

But he says the increased productivity hasn’t improved working conditions.

“We are producing more, but the salary increases aren’t there,” he said. “He hasn’t solved the problem of why we are funded so much less than the other schools. That’s probably the biggest fundamental problem between the president and the faculty.”

Still, many faculty members feel McPherson has helped spur momentum that has improved the university’s academic reputation.

MSU has seen significant increases in Honors College enrollment, admission standards and minority enrollment.

And the university now boasts the nation’s largest study abroad program.

Many also praise McPherson for initiating the McPherson Professorship lecture series last year, created with the help of a $2 million anonymous donation. The professorship aims to educate students about the importance of science.

MSU’s academic advances can’t all be attributed to McPherson, but many faculty members say he’s led the university well.

Charles Kupfer, a visiting assistant professor of American Thought and Language, said he was impressed after observing McPherson participate as a judge for a student project competition last semester.

“I think he thought it was a chance to get some perspective from students,” he said. “From where I sit, the university seems to be run fairly well and the president deserves some of the credit.

“I get the feeling that McPherson is in touch with both the school’s past and his vision for the future.”