Rutgers president Robert Barchi has had an eventful rookie year at the helm of New Jersey's largest university, but he has seemingly weathered each storm and now has done something of a welcome surprise.

The Newark Star-Ledger reported Barchi earned a bonus of $90,000 on top of his $650,000 annual salary. However, the Rutgers president has announced he will donate every last cent of that $90,000 to the school.

Previously president at Philadelphia's Thomas Jefferson University, Barchi took the Rutgers president's office in Sept. 2012. Since, he has dealt with his men's basketball coach being caught physically and verbally berating his players, leading to his and the athletic director's (who knew about the abuse) firing.

Then he hired a new AD with an alleged past of abusing players on her former volleyball team. Barchi was questioned by New Jersey governor Chris Christie, but ended up sticking by his new hire.

After that, his businesses were called into question because he sat on two adviser boards of companies that were funded by Rutgers. Ultimately, the school approved these practices.

Barchi survived the first year and successfully managed the school to a merger with the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey and guiding the athletic department into the Big Ten conference.

The Rutgers Board of Governors reportedly gave Barchi a nice review in a closed-door meeting last week and told him he would receive the bonus - close to the $97,500 max he could have received.

"We are delighted with the progress Rutgers has seen this past year, and we thank you for your dedication and leadership," Gerald Harvey, chairman of the Rutgers Board of Governors, wrote Monday in a letter.

But, in a surprise turn, Barchi announced that he and his wife Francis wanted to give the bonus back to the school to help students pay their tuition.

"Given that we are currently in a year of fiscal restraint and that we are asking our faculty, students and staff to do more with less, Francis and I intend to gift the net proceeds of this incentive compensation to Rutgers," Barchi wrote to the board. "It is our intention that this money be used to augment student aid for undergraduate students at our university."

Inside Higher Ed reported that Rutgers professors ultimately did not care about the bonus and were generally too exhausted from the bad press surrounding the school to have an opinion even on Barchi's generous move.

"I just think everybody is so demoralized that whether the president got his bonus or not," aid Lisa Klein, the current AAUP president and a professor of materials science and engineering. "They don't really care."

Klein said she was not only fed up with the New Jersey government, but with the federal government for costing her research time with the shutdown.

Also not to be forgotten, Barchi himself had also declined to watch the video of Mike Rice verbally assaulting, kicking, shoving and throwing basketballs at his players' heads until the 30-minute segment appeared on ESPN.