Presidents’ Salaries Surge

University President Lawrence H. Summers found himself in the basement of the Ivy League’s presidential pay scale in fiscal year 2004, according to a survey by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

With $554,098 in salary and benefits, Summers ranked seventh out of eight Ivy League presidents and 27th among leaders of private universities nationwide, the survey found.

In a sign of surging executive compensation, five university presidents’ salaries surpassed $1 million dollars, and nine earned more than $900,000—a figure none reached in last year’s Chronicle report.

Topping the list was Donald Ross of Lynn University in Boca Raton, Fla., who pulled in $5.04 million in his final year as president. That unusually high figure included $4.5 million in deferred compensation awarded after 34 years of service.

Behind Ross, Audrey K. Doberstein of Wilmington College in Delaware reaped $1.37 million, and Gordon Gee of Vanderbilt earned $1.33 million in the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2004.

Experts in higher-education compensation attributed the jump in salaries of university presidents to increased demand for a limited supply of qualified candidates. The retirement of baby-boomer administrators added pressure to the market for top university posts, they said.

Raymond D. Cotton, vice president for higher education at MLStrategies, a law firm in Washington, said that universities must use economic incentives to attract the best and the brightest individuals to lead their schools.

“The media likes to hype large presidential pay packages, but universities can’t ignore the marketplace,” he said. “Demand is exceeding supply for university presidents, and it is appropriate for the board of trustees and the Harvard Corporation to respond to competition in the marketplace.”

The Corporation, the University’s top governing board, sets Summers’ annual salary based on his performance in the previous year.

Summers’ compensation became an issue this summer when Conrad K. Harper resigned from the seven-member Corporation, arguing against a 3-percent raise for the University president. “In my judgment, your 2004-05 conduct, implicating, as it does, profound issues of temperament and judgment, merits no increase whatsoever,” Harper wrote in a letter to Summers.

Based on information released by the University after Harper’s resignation, Summers will earn $581,467 in salary this fiscal year. His salary, excluding benefits, was $522,714 in fiscal year 2004.

In an interview yesterday, Summers passed on a question about how presidential compensation should be set.

“I think that’s a judgment best made by boards of trustees—in the case of Harvard, the Corporation. Beyond that, I don’t think it would be appropriate for me to comment.”

The American Association of University Professors, an organization of roughly 45,000 faculty and research scholars, has sharply criticized the rising salaries of university presidents. Roger W. Bowen, general secretary of the association, said that corporate board members were to blame for exorbitant salaries paid to university presidents.

“We’re corporatizing the institution of the university,” he said. “Presidents are beginning to think of themselves as CEOs rather than as university presidents. Presidents should be ethical and moral guides if they are to be genuine leaders over the long-term future of higher education.”

Bowen added, “If Mr. Summers is not donating a significant portion of his salary back to faculty development and student scholarship funds, then I say shame on him.”

Perhaps reflecting the sensitivity of compensation issues, more than 10 Harvard professors contacted yesterday declined to comment on Summers’ salary or the larger trend of rising presidential paychecks.

The trend extended to public universities, where the median presidential salary jumped 10 percent to $360,000. Still, presidents at private research universities earned far more, with a median salary of $468,704.

“The state universities are now falling behind the private universities,” said Cotton, the university compensation expert. “That concerns me because two-thirds of college students are in state universities, not private. State universities need to start paying more in order to be competitive.”