It's about time Hopkins, our modestly eminent university, topped one of those tacky lists arranged by the more desperate of publications and invariably forwarded to one's inbox by the more irksome of parents.
So what are we suddenly the "best" at? It isn't US News' 'Best National Universities' (we're in a gruesome three-way tie at 14). Or even Princeton Review's Best College Food (fourth worst). We have accomplished something much more objective than those silly superlatives and that is, well, paying our president more than any other academic institution in the U.S.
In the year 2006-2007 this meant a staggering $1,499,220. And yes, this figure is somewhat unusual, as the News-Letter noted in its glowing reportage last week, because of an inscrutably deferred lump sum. But glancing at years past-$772,276 in 2002, $897,786 in 2003, $837,016 in 2005, even one with a loose grasp of arithmetic can recognize that William Brody is, and has been, making the big bucks. And this is not something of which Hopkins should be proud.
I will not, or more accurately cannot, question that President Brody is serving our school magnificently, or even that he is perhaps the most capable of all university presidents, because I (and every other student I have asked) do not really know what a university president does.
But this is beside the point. Brody's performance is simply irrelevant to the exorbitant salary that the Board of Trustees is currently bestowing upon him. In the News-Letter, Brody's assistant, while defending his sizable income, commented, "Johns Hopkins would be a Fortune-500 company if it was for-profit." Apart from the revolting prospect of our school being governed by a principle of wealth as opposed to education, this statement is specious at best.
In the private sector, CEO's salaries are determined by the supply and demand of the marketplace; this is why Hopkins alum and CEO of IBM Samuel Palmisano gets paid upwards of $40 million per year - because he is good at what he does, and IBM must compensate him accordingly or they will lose him.
But this is not the force behind determining income in the realm of universities, charities and other non-profits. The post of Hopkins president, unlike CEO of IBM, inherently offers more than just monetary remuneration and therefore attracts candidates of the highest talent regardless of salary.
Are we to believe that if President Brody's $1.49 million were cut to a more reasonable $150,000 that he would pack up his bags and move out of the Nichols House? And if he did, would the more unostentatious presidential income really scare away potential successors? That seems not to be the case for the Supreme Court, Congress or countless charities and institutions where intelligence and talent are not dependent on financial reward.
There is more urgency to this problem, however, than the overcompensation of one man. In an academic setting, particularly a research institution, the abundance or scarcity of money can have profound effects.
In a private company like IBM the absence of a million dollars in profit might amount to the loss of a hundredth of a penny per shareholder. But for Hopkins, a million dollars in endowment lost could mean 10 kids do not get scholarships. Or that the science labs wouldn't be able to purchase more advanced equipment. Or the Johns Hopkins Center for Italian Studies in Italy would be forced to shut down for lack of funds.
The demand for reinvestment into our school will never ebb. I hope Hopkins students, regardless of their attitude towards business or wealth, will proudly consider this university a bastion of education, and in no way, shape or form, a company that needs to woo administrators with enormous windfalls. I implore the Board to rethink President Brody's salary, keeping in mind how many intellectual endeavors that money can benefit. As a newly inducted (and paid) member of the Board of Directors of IBM, surely President Brody could trade that diverted time (and the other boards he sits on) for, say, a scholarship or two?
