Where your tuition goes -- Ivory Tower Executive Suite Gets C.E.O.-Level Salaries

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Ivory Tower Executive Suite Gets C.E.O.-Level Salaries

November 15, 2004
 By SAM DILLON





The earnings of many top university presidents are
spiraling up toward $1 million a year, according to an
annual survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education, rising
far more quickly than faculty salaries.

Forty-two presidents of private universities were paid
$500,000 or more in the 2003 fiscal year, the most recent
for which figures are available, compared with 27
presidents the previous year. Just two earned half a
million in 1994.

The highest-paid private university president, William R.
Brody of Johns Hopkins University, earned $897,786 in
university compensation, not counting at least $100,000 in
annual pay for membership on several corporate boards. At
least five other university presidents earned more than
$800,000, including Judith Rodin, who has since left the
presidency of the University of Pennsylvania, and Gordon
Gee, the chancellor of Vanderbilt. They received the
second- and third-highest compensation packages.

The presidents of public universities, too, are earning
salaries that would have been inconceivable a few years
back, although they remain lower than on private campuses.
At public universities, 17 presidents earn more than
$500,000, compared with 12 last year and 6 the year before
that.

Mark A. Emmert of the University of Washington is the
highest-paid public university president, earning $762,000
this academic year. Carl V. Patton of Georgia State, who
receives $722,350, and Mary Sue Coleman of the University
of Michigan, who receives $677,500, rank second and third.

"These huge salaries feed into the ongoing corporatization
of the academy," said Roger Bowen, general secretary of the
American Association of University Professors, who earned
about $120,000 a year when he was president of the State
University of New York at New Paltz during the last decade.
"Universities do not exist to make money but to educate our
students and citizens, a role that is central to our
democratic society. We send the wrong message when we
transmogrify our campus presidents into C.E.O.'s."

The Chronicle based its listings of private university
presidents on the most recently available university
federal tax filings, for the 2002-2003 fiscal year. It
collected its data on public university presidents by
conducting telephone interviews with officials at 131
public research universities and colleges, said Julianne
Basinger, who compiled this year's special section. The
figures for public university presidents reflect their
current compensation, she said.

The median compensation for presidents of private research
universities rose to $459,643 in 2003 from $314,944 in
1999, or 46 percent, The Chronicle reported.

Several members of university boards said their presidents
deserve the compensation because their responsibilities are
increasingly complex, with oversight of thousands of
employees, as well as vast research budgets and
fund-raising campaigns. Dr. Brody of Johns Hopkins, who has
a medical degree and a doctorate in engineering, manages
Maryland's largest private work force, with 45,000
employees, and the largest research budget of any American
university, more than $1 billion.

"He deserves his compensation," Raymond A. Mason, chairman
of the Johns Hopkins board, said in a statement.

But the rising salaries of presidents appear to be opening
a social and financial breach with professors. The average
compensation for full professors at public and private
universities last year was about $100,000, Dr. Bowen said.

The rising presidential salaries at public universities
come as many legislatures have slashed their states' higher
education budgets. Public four-year colleges raised tuition
on average 14 percent last year and 10 percent this year,
according to the College Board.

Still, trustees at public universities say that to attract
talented leaders they must compete with the private
universities. The University of Washington Board of Regents
enticed Dr. Emmert to leave the chancellorship of Louisiana
State University in Baton Rouge, where he was paid
$590,000, by matching that figure and adding a $160,000
one-time incentive to move, Jeff Brotman, the chairman of
Costco who is the president of the board of regents, said
in an interview.

"We think we got tremendous value," Mr. Brotman said. "It's
like going into Costco and you see a bottle of Dom Perignon
for $90. That's a great value, but it's not cheap."

At many universities, the most highly compensated official
is not the president. At Duke in the 2003 fiscal year, for
instance, Nannerl O. Keohane, who was the president then,
received $528,622 in total compensation, while Mike
Krzyzewski, the basketball coach, received $853,099.

The highest-paid person in American academic life,
according to The Chronicle, was Maurice Samuels, who
received $35.1 million, including a bonus of $14.5 million
for reaching investment goals, as senior vice president of
the Harvard Management Company, which manages Harvard
University's $22.6 billion endowment. Lawrence H. Summers,
the Harvard University president, received $529,397 in
total compensation.

Two top educators at Boston University made the list of
highest-paid presidents for the 2002-2003 year. Jon
Westling, who left the Boston University presidency in July
2002, received $700,626 in total compensation. John R.
Silber, the chancellor who had served as president from
1971 through 1996 and who assumed the duties but not the
formal title of president when Dr. Westling stepped down,
received $808,677 in total compensation during the same
fiscal year.

A year later, in October 2003, Boston University paid $1.8
million to Daniel S. Goldin, a former NASA administrator,
to walk away from his contract as university president the
day before he was to assume the duties from Dr. Silber.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/15/education/15salary.html? 
ex=1101518528&ei=1&en=fa3647e12fe4f023


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