According to a recent survey of private university presidents' salaries, PresidentWilliam Brody was paid $772,276 for the fiscal year 2001-02, making him the fifth highest paid in the country. In last year's survey of the 2000-01 fiscal year, Brody's salary of $677,564 ranked third in the nation.
Shirley Ann Jackson of theRensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) led the list with a salary of $891,400, which also included deferred compensation. The list was first published in the Chronicle of Higher Education this past week.
Salaries for university presidents have risen around the nation as institutions have fought to acquire and maintain those who are most qualified and successful.
Since 1997, the President's salary at Hopkins has increased by 44.7 percent, much greater than the rate of inflation.
In the same period of time, the average salary for Hopkins full professors with tenure rose only 15.3 percent. President Brody's salary in 1996-97, his first year in office, was $435,592. Rounding out the top five of the latest survey were Gordon Gee of Vanderbilt, Judith Rodin of U. Penn and Arnold Levine of Rockefeller University.
Presidents of other prestigious universities made far less than President Brody, who was paid over $750,000. Shirley M. Tilghman of Princeton was paid $486,667, Lawrence Summers of Harvard was paid $487,687 and John L. Hennessy of Stanford was paid $566,581.
In addition to their regular salaries, a lot of university presidents, including President Brody, make extra income from holding seats on theboards of major corporations. Since 1997, the average salary for the president of a doctoral university has risen from $290,054 to $385,631 in 2002, the most recent year for which data is available.
Only two people employed by Hopkins were paid more than the President in2001-02, and both of them work at the medical campus. Henry Brem, director of neurosurgery, received $971,469 and Edward Miller, Jr., CEO of Johns Hopkinsmedicine, was paid $804,573. It is not unusual for physicians at university-associated hospitals to be paid more than the university's president.
At Duke, Men's Basketball Coach Mike Krzyzewski made $808,000,about $300,000 more than the president.
Escalating salaries for university presidents has come under some criticismin recent years. But columnist Mike Bowler of the Baltimore Sun thinks that the pay is well-deserved.
"Running a billion-dollar university is hugely difficult, and those who do it well deserve to be well-compensated," he wrote on Nov. 12. He noted that presidents' salaries are quite small when compared to the salaries of top-level corporate executives.
The entire university had revenues of over $2.4 billion, according to its 2002 financial report. In the same year, it had 18,235 students enrolled in all its divisions and employed 20,691 people. University spokesman Dennis O'Shea said that the President's salary is based both on the difficulty of the job and the quality with which it is performed.
"The President's compensation is set by the board of trustees, and they take into account both performance and the enormous complexity of the job," he said.
The President also receives some external benefits in addition to his salary, like the use of the Nichols House, as a permanent residence. Salary data was obtained by the Chronicle of Higher Education from colleges' federal tax-filings.
