Locals on low end of pay scale
A number of private-college leaders have compensation packages topping $1 million, but many in central Ohio earn below-average pay.
Presidents at Capital, Denison, Otterbein and Ohio Wesleyan universities, as well as Kenyon College, each earned total compensation below the average of $570,000 per year paid to private-college presidents nationwide in 2015, according to a new report from the Chronicle of Higher Education.
The highest-paid privatecollege leaders in central
Ohio were Kenyon President Sean Decatur with nearly $452,000 in compensation and Denison President Adam Weinberg with more than $435,000.
Denvy Bowman, thenpresident at Capital, earned nearly $389,000 in 2015, Ohio Wesleyan President Rock Jones earned nearly $367,000 and Otterbein President Kathy Krendl earned more than $378,000.
Each central Ohio private president saw salary increases in 2015 over the previous year, except for Jones.
Elsewhere across the country, nearly six dozen private-college leaders earned more than $1 million in salaries, bonuses and other pay in 2015. Leading the list was Nathan O. Hatch, president of Wake Forest University Winston-Salem, North Carolina, with more than $4 million in compensation in 2015.
Overall, presidents at private universities saw their compensation increase by 9 percent in 2015.
The report from the Chronicle includes deferred compensation payouts that university leaders may receive in a given year, which may make some leaders’ pay look higher than it really is, said Raymond D. Cotton, an attorney with the Washington law firm Nelson Mullins, who specializes in higher-education law and presidential compensation.
Still, Cotton said, the report is one of the better measures of private president compensation.
In Ohio, the highest-paid private-college president in 2015 was Daniel Curran, then-president of the University of Dayton. Curran, who had the eighth-highest compensation nationwide, earned more than $2.4 million that year, up from more than $771,000 the year before. The university paid Curran nearly $1.7 million in 2015 after he turned 65, on top of his $611,000 salary. Curran retired from the university the following year.
Dayton officials said deferred pay is commonly used to attract and retain high-quality leaders.
The next-highest compensation package among Ohio private-college leaders went to Case Western Reserve University’s Barbara Snyder, who earned nearly
$1.2 million at the school in Cleveland.
A variety of factors can contribute to why a president’s compensation may be significantly higher at one school than another, Cotton said. Smaller schools tend to pay less, he said. Endowment sizes and academic reputation also might play a role, as well as whether an institution has graduate schools.
Ultimately, compensation can climb simply because of supply and demand, Cotton said, adding that there will be fewer experienced, qualified candidates to fill presidential positions when current presidents retire.
“The hard core of it is it’s the marketplace that decides,” he said.
A number of private Ohio colleges, as well as the Council of Independent Colleges and the Association of Independent Colleges and Universities of Ohio, declined to comment or did not respond to messages seeking comment regarding the compensation data.
While the six- and sometimes seven-figure compensation deals are a lot of money, the reality is that most college presidents could make much more if they took jobs in the private sector, Cotton said.
“But they choose not to do that, because they see what they do as a calling,” he said.
And it’s a calling that’s becoming more and more difficult, Cotton said, with added pressures of navigating matters such as sexual assaults on campus and freespeech issues.
“These are really tough jobs,” he said.