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Careers in Government Relations

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By Jennifer Jacobson

If you work in government relations for a college or university, now is probably the most challenging time of your career. The economy has tanked, state governments have slashed higher-education spending while the federal government is not likely to increase it, and still you must ask politicians for money that just isn't there.

"You have to be a competitor," says Steven M. Webster, vice president for governmental affairs at Michigan State University. "You have to be passionate about your cause because it's very difficult working with government these days."

Administrators in government relations typically work for large public and private research universities that receive significant amounts of federal and state support. These institutions often have whole offices handling government relations, run by a vice president who reports to the university's president and oversees a staff of lobbyists.

Alternatively, some universities employ a director of government relations, who works out of the institution's office of external affairs (along with other departments such as public relations and community relations) and reports to that office's vice president.

While smaller colleges receive fewer government dollars, they still need to track relevant legislation. Some private colleges and two-year colleges -- especially the larger community-college systems -- have their own vice presidents for governmental affairs. However, most small colleges don't, and instead either employ a special assistant to the president specifically for governmental affairs or assign the job to another administrator. The latest administrative salary survey by the College and University Professional Association for Human Resources bears this out, as doctoral and comprehensive institutions were far more likely than baccalaureate and two-year colleges to have a director of government relations.

Just as titles in the field run the gamut, so do career paths into the profession. Many administrators in government relations are former legislators, legislative staffers, or lawyers. Some have master's degrees in public policy and political science, but many say that experience in government is far more important than advanced degrees to doing the job well.

Higher education is more than willing to pay for such expertise. According to the college-personnel association's 2002-3 administrative salary survey, the median salary for directors of government relations at all institutions was $98,267; at doctoral institutions, the median was $103,498; at comprehensive colleges, $86,088; at baccalaureate colleges, $74,045; and at two-year colleges, $89,590.

Salaries for these administrators are high because they have so many lucrative job opportunities in the private sector, says Travis J. Reindl, director of state-policy analysis and assistant to the president at the American Association of State Colleges and Universities. "It's very easy for a college lobbyist to go into the private sector and be a rainmaker for somebody's firm," he says. "The people you're trying to attract to a college or university are people who come from the private sector and have extensive contacts and experience. They know how to get bills through." But "these people ain't cheap."

With a $150,000 salary, Mr. Webster, of Michigan State, pulls in private-sector-type pay for a job he describes as "extremely sensitive." It's not uncommon for a large state university to receive $1-billion a year from state government, he says, and some research universities receive additional millions of dollars from the federal government. "These are large, large businesses that have very complex relationships with state governments," he says. And in facilitating those relationships, "you are, at many times, the face of the university."

A graduate of Michigan State, Mr. Webster earned a B.A. in the university's James Madison College, which specializes in international relations, economics, urban affairs, and public policy. In 1978, he earned an M.B.A. in finance from the university. An internship he had in the Michigan House of Representatives in 1973 led to a full-time job as a fiscal analyst for the House Fiscal Agency, a research arm of the House Appropriations Committee, a position he held until 1979 when he became associate director of that agency.

After 14 years, he wanted to try something new, but still wanted to pursue public policy. So in 1987, he accepted a job as assistant to the president for state and legislative relations at Michigan State. In 1989, he was promoted to assistant vice president, and that job grew into the vice presidency he has held since 1995.

Michigan State's federal relations are handled by two lobbyists and an office manager who live and work in Washington. Mr. Webster oversees the office and flies there six times a year from East Lansing, Mich. On the campus, he supervises a lobbyist, a communications officer, and two executive assistants. His office helps faculty members secure grants, works with the state budget to assure state appropriations, and monitors legislation that would affect the university.

"It's a dream job if you're a policy wonk," and "if you have a deep respect for state government and higher education," Mr. Webster says.

It's also a job that people tend to stay in. Matthew Long, government-relations director for the Council for Advancement and Support of Education, says that "while I know people who have moved from institution to institution, a lot of individuals I know tend to be at their institutions for quite a while." That's "because it's lobbying, it's building up relationships over years."

"It takes a really long time to learn about a complex place like a university," Mr. Webster says. "You have to know that product, all its programs, needs." Besides, many government-relations officers "end up becoming cheerleaders as much as they are communicators," he says. "You need a real passion to do this well. It's hard to transfer that passion from place to place."

At 50, Mr. Webster does not plan to move to another university vice presidency. Instead, he says he'll eventually retire from Michigan State and may go into consulting.

Chris A. Bustamante has grander plans. The director of state relations for the Maricopa County Community College District, in Arizona, he eventually hopes to become a college president. All the political skills he has developed in government relations have prepared him for such a role. His Ed.D. in educational leadership from Northern Arizona University doesn't hurt either.

Most university presidents, however, don't come from the government-relations ranks, although there are exceptions, such as John Buechner, former president of the University of Colorado at Boulder, who previously served as its director of government relations.

"A lot of my colleagues stay in the track of government relations," says Mr. Bustamente, who earns $108,000 a year. So if he wanted to climb the government-relations hierarchy in the Maricopa system, he would have to become the director of governmental and external affairs, the position held by his immediate boss. He then would need to become the vice chancellor for student development and community affairs, to whom Mr. Bustamante's boss reports. However, Mr. Bustamente plans to reach the presidency the old-fashioned way -- by becoming a dean and then moving up the ranks in academic administration.

Farther down the government-relations food chain, Mr. Bustamente says, are entry-level jobs such as governmental-relations assistants, which typically pay between $38,000 and $42,000 a year and involve doing research and crafting amendments to bills.

Marisa A. Quinn followed a more circuitous route into the field. The director of community and government relations at Brown University, Ms. Quinn earned a bachelor's in political science from the University of Rhode Island in 1986. "When I graduated, my father was skeptical I would ever use the degree," she says. "He wanted me to be a pharmacist or a teacher" and do "something concrete."

But "I just loved politics and policy," she says. "I really thought I would get a job at the Brookings Institution." So she came to Washington, she says, without realizing just how hard it was to get a job there.

She landed one with a nonprofit organization, but it only lasted six months. She then worked as a part-time messenger for the U.S. Senate Foreign Relations Committee. After three months of delivering mail to members of the committee, she was promoted to a position on the education subcommittee, which she held for three years. She then went to Rutgers University at New Brunswick and earned a master's degree in politics and public policy in 1991. Since that time, she has worked for a former New Jersey governor as a policy adviser, for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey as a public-affairs specialist, and as chief of communications and public affairs for the Rhode Island education department.

In 1999, she joined Brown as director of federal relations and then moved to her current position, in which she supervises a community liaison, an associate director, and an administrative assistant. She reports to the executive vice president for public affairs and university relations.

Ms. Quinn, who declines to reveal her salary, describes her job as "very busy" and "varied." On one recent day, she worked on a presentation that involved the role of universities in homeland security, and the next day she attended a ceremony in which Brown donated computers to a local high school.

She travels to Washington three days a month to attend meetings of the Association of American Universities, in which governmental-relations officers at top research institutions "talk about our priorities and how we can work together to advance policies and funding that support university-based research," she says. And she'll also meet with members of the Rhode Island delegation when she is in town.

Government relations, she says, is all about "friend raising" and "keeping information flowing about what's happening at Brown."

Her job, she says, is never boring. "It really provides an opportunity to spend time getting to know people," she says. "It takes research and using data to make your case. It takes patience and diplomacy," since "sometimes you're working to influence a piece of legislation that would impact you negatively."

And that is what Karen Y. Zamarripa finds so rewarding about the job. The assistant vice chancellor for governmental affairs of the California State University System, Ms. Zamarripa remembers when a state legislator introduced a bill last year that would have required that 50 cents of every dollar at the system had to be spent on faculty members to raise their salaries. "This sounds hunky dory," Ms. Zamarripa says, "but with the kind of students we serve," it's not.

The system, she says, takes two out of three transfer students from California community colleges; the average age of a Cal State student is 26. The bill would have taken away money for much-needed student services, she says. System "students don't have parents walking them through each step [of financial aid]. Many are parents themselves. They need that support."

So with Ms. Zamarripa's help, the system defeated the bill. "I knew it was the right thing," she says. "I went home thinking we did good work today."