[C]ritics of the trend say lofty compensation packages [for university presidents] have spawned a new ultra class within academia that grows steadily disconnected from the masses and undermines public confidence.

“We’ve created a cadre of hired guns whose economic interests are totally divorced from students and faculty,” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, a nonprofit group based in San Jose, Calif. “It creates a real problem for leadership, and does nothing to help higher education.”













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From a Charlottesville, Virginia newspaper today:


"I was sitting at my computer at about 3pm grading papers," says Joe Miller, a UVA history professor who lives on Dry Bridge Road, "when I suddenly heard a crash and was covered with glass shards."

Miller lives with his wife and their six-year-old son in a modern home designed by architect James Tuley. His first thought was that one of the massive windows had simply given way. "We'd been having some structural issues," he says, "because of all the glass."

Instead, when he swiveled around to survey the splintered window just four feet behind his chair, he saw a terrifying sight: a perfect hole surrounded by radial fractures.

"I thought, 'Oh my God, that was a bullet,'" he says.

…Miller, who called 911 immediately after his own bullet incident, says he assumes the bullet that entered his home was fired accidentally.