Few Women Are Among the Presidents With the Largest Compensation Packages

By JULIE L. NICKLIN

With Judith Rodin topping the compensation list for continuing private-college presidents,

ALSO SEE: A Database of Pay and Benefits, 1993-2000 RELATED CHART AND TABLES: Presidents in Top Pay Brackets Top Earners, Excluding Presidents and Medical Personnel, 1999-2000 Presidents Who Earned the Most in Total Compensation, 1999-2000 Executive Pay in For-Profit Higher Education RELATED ARTICLES: Private-College Presidents Enjoy Another Lucrative Year (11/9/2001) Stock Options Sweeten Packages for Executives in For-Profit Higher Education (11/9/2001)

some might think women have broken through the financial glass ceiling.

Think again.

The next woman doesn't appear until No. 37 -- Nannerl O. Keohane, president of Duke University, who was paid $425,618. That's $272,707 less than Ms. Rodin.

Two other women presidents follow close behind: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute's Shirley Ann Jackson, who made $423,150, and Rebecca Stafford, of Monmouth University, in New Jersey, who received $405,339. That's it for women among the 50 highest-paid presidents.

"There's still a struggle ahead for women," says Jean Dowdall, a vice president of A.T. Kearney Executive Search, which helps colleges recruit senior administrators, and a columnist for The Chronicle's Career Network. "Boards perceive that they can get away with paying women less, driven by history."

In the mid-$300,000-per-year range, another peppering of women appears: Peggy A. Stock, of Westminster College, in Utah; Ruth J. Simmons, then president of Smith College; Claire L. Gaudiani, then president of Connecticut College; and Audrey K. Doberstein, of Wilmington College, in Delaware.

According to a 1998 study, women preside over nearly 20 percent of the nation's colleges. But they tend to head smaller institutions -- those, typically, that cannot afford to pay the higher salaries, says Marlene Ross, who directed the study for the American Council on Education.

What's more, some women presidents don't like to play hardball when it comes to salaries, says Raymond D. Cotton, a lawyer in Washington who negotiates compensation packages for colleges and their presidents. "Three-hundred-sixty-five days a year, seven days a week, they're out there advocating for an institution, and then all of a sudden they're negotiating for themselves, and they feel a conflict of interest," he says.

In the fiscal year 2000, Monmouth's Ms. Stafford ranked as the third-highest-paid president of a master's-level institution; and Ms. Simmons and Ms. Gaudiani ranked eighth and ninth, respectively, among the top-paid presidents at baccalaureate institutions.

Duke's Board of Trustees would like to pay Ms. Keohane more. In the 2000 fiscal year, Duke, which had an operating budget of $983-million, paid Mike Krzyzewski, its men's basketball coach, $587,834; and Ralph Snyderman, chief executive officer of the Duke University Medical Center, $464,704. Both received more than Ms. Keohane, who has been running Duke for eight years.

But she has put a lid on her own compensation.

"It's matter of principle," says Ms. Keohane. "I'm not trying to tell other people what to do, but I wouldn't feel comfortable having a salary level so dramatically different than what people here at all levels of Duke do."

For that reason, she has requested that her total compensation be held at a comparatively modest level, and that her annual increases be more in line with the 4-percent annual increases that faculty members typically receive. An exception was from the 1999 fiscal year to the 2000 year, when her total compensation jumped 12.3 percent, from $378,889 to $425,618.

John F. Burness, Duke's senior vice president for public affairs, says the bump came as the result of Ms. Keohane's five-year review, which was extraordinarily favorable. Trustees, he says, felt that she should be rewarded financially -- even though she objected to the size of the increase. Says Ms. Keohane, "$425,000 is by no means a minor-league salary. It's a lot of money."

So does that mean Monmouth, with a budget roughly one-tenth that of Duke, overpaid President Stafford? Not at all, says Charles T. Parton, immediate past chairman of Monmouth's Board of Trustees, which has set up a compensation plan for Ms. Stafford that has given her large raises as part of what it calls a "tenure-redemption plan."

Her normal salary is in the "high $200,000s," says Mr. Parton. But at the board's request, Ms. Stafford accepted a higher salary for five years, beginning in the 1997 fiscal year, in exchange for her tenure rights when she leaves the presidency. Mr. Parton says institutions often end up having to pay their former presidents for years because they remain as professors or in emeritus positions. "When she leaves Monmouth, she'll leave a legacy of success," he says. "But this eliminates that financial uncertainty."

In the 2000 fiscal year, Ms. Jackson's first at RPI, she received $310,329 in salary and $112,821 in benefits. Her benefits package was the sixth-largest received by a president of a doctoral institution. RPI declined to comment.

Those who track presidents are keeping their eyes on Ms. Jackson and other women, who are taking the helm of larger, wealthier institutions, especially those joining Ms. Rodin in the Ivy League. In June, Shirley M. Caldwell Tilghman became Princeton University's president. A month later, Ms. Simmons took over at Brown University.

Princeton and Brown won't disclose what they are paying their presidents, and they won't have to make it public until they file their IRS 990 forms for the 2002 fiscal year. But recruiters and others are eager to find out.

"Now we have a lot more women in the pipeline," says Ms. Ross, of ACE. "I think we have to wait and watch, but we also have to continue to work to remove barriers that prevent women from getting these positions."

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