Kansas City, Mo. ? Martha Gilliland, who will resign as chancellor of the University of Missouri-Kansas City on Jan. 1, will receive $125,000 in deferred compensation this spring even though she failed to stay at the school long enough to qualify for the bonus.

The contract Gilliland signed when she took the job required that she hold the post for at least five years to qualify for the deferred pay, equal to 12 percent of her annual salary for each year. Gilliland is leaving before the five-year minimum, but the university system’s Board of Curators agreed to pay the bonus as part of a severance agreement.

Gilliland, who came to the university in April 2000, said last week she planned to resign. Last month, four different faculty groups took votes of no-confidence in her, and Elson Floyd, president of the university system, came to Kansas City to meet with deans, students leaders and staff.

Gilliland, 60, started out with an annual salary of $175,000, which rose to $255,000 for the current school year.

After resigning, Gilliland will still be a tenured professor in UMKC’s School of Computing and Engineering, a position she has held jointly with that of chancellor. She last worked as a professor in 1990 at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

The severance agreement released Thursday provides she will continue to receive the $255,000 salary until April 1. After that, she will be paid $116,000 a year as a professor.

She will not teach in the spring semester, using that time to prepare to work as a professor.

It is expected she will start teaching in the fall.

Gilliland has a doctorate in environmental engineer-ing/systems ecology from the University of Florida.

After leaving the chancellor’s job she will no longer have the car the university provided for her, but she will be allowed to live in the chancellor’s residence until March 1.