Watch them as, under pressure, they start tossing money back at their universities. Watch how they do it, and watch what they say. This Princeton University newspaper article helps get us going.
In light of the current economic crisis, the presidents of Penn, Rutgers and other public and private institutions of higher education have decided to either turn down their annual salary increases or otherwise make a monetary donation to their schools.
Penn president Amy Gutmann and her husband Michael Doyle have made two donations to Penn recently. The first gift of $150,000 is to be used for financial aid, Penn spokeswoman Lori Doyle said in an e-mail. The second gift of $100,000, made last month, will support undergraduate research through the Center for Undergraduate Research and Fellowships at Penn.
“I want more Penn students, regardless of their future career plans, to experience the thrill that Michael and I have had in our academic research,” Gutmann, who served as Princeton’s provost from 2001 to 2004, said in a statement. [We want to share the thrill!]
Doyle noted that in addition to her gift, “Gutmann has decided not to take any base-salary increase this year.” [Desperately throwing things overboard in an effort not to sink.]
Gutmann received a 40 percent increase in her salary and benefits from 2006 to 2007, bringing her total compensation to slightly more than $1 million, according to The Chronicle of Higher Education. Among Ivy League presidents, her compensation is second only to Columbia president Lee Bollinger, who received $1.4 million in the 2006-07 academic year. [See, you've got her problem right there. She can throw absolutely everything overboard, but it won't help. In the immortal words of Jack O'Dwyer, an old public relations hand who was talking about Richard Grasso, “No PR can possibly help... There is no answer to pure greed.”]
President Tilghman, who made $742,444 in the same timeframe, has not made any public gifts or announced any changes to her salary.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for me to be discussing those issues publicly,” she said. “Those are issues between myself and the compensation committee of the University.” [None of your effing business.]
Presidents of public universities have also given money to their institutions.
Rutgers president Richard McCormick donated the amount of his annual bonus, $100,000, back to Rutgers for financial aid. He and his wife will pay the gift over the course of five years. [If ever a man deserved a $100,000 bonus, it would be the man who the New York Times has recently suggested should resign, because his financial and moral ineptitude have come close to destroying his university. I guess the rationale for the bonus is between McCormick and the compensation committee.]
… The salaries of administrators in higher education have attracted criticism as their institutions face falling endowment values and shortfalls in state funding.
“People are getting tuition increases; some faculty are facing layoffs — it just doesn’t look too good for presidents, no matter how capable they are, to be getting so much money,” said Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, according to the Times.
“Americans have had a touching faith in higher education; it’s losing its good image with the public,” he added…
