Rodin's salary tops among presidents

President Rodin's salary was the highest for all university presidents in fiscal year 1997-98, says a new report. Pulling in nearly $550,000 in salary and benefits, University President Judith Rodin once again ranked as one of the five highest-paid college presidents in the country. Rodin's $529,677 in salary alone was the highest of any college president in fiscal year 1997-98, according to a report this week in The Chronicle of Higher Education. Her $18,697 in benefits gave her a combined salary and compensation package of $548,374 -- the fifth-highest compensation package among college and university presidents -- for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1998. The annual article is based on the federal tax filings of 475 private colleges and universities. The 1998 package represents a 6.2 percent increase from the $514,878 that Rodin received in the 1997 fiscal year. That year, her $498,536 salary also ranked first among the nation's college presidents and her total compensation package ranked third nationally. Rodin, 55, was one of three Ivy League presidents whose compensations ranked among the top 10. Richard Levin, president of Yale University, received $372,500 in pay and $123,323 in benefits for a total package of $495,283. And George Rupp of Columbia University rounded out the top 10 with his $477,383 compensation package. "We believe that [Rodin's] compensation is competitive for the responsibilities that she is expected to assume," University spokesperson Ken Wildes said last night, adding that many presidents at peer institutions are given a "much narrower" range of responsibility. Unlike most college presidents, Rodin is responsible for overseeing a multi-billion dollar health system in addition to the academic side of the university. Rodin said last month that she was "grateful" for the "confidence and support" she has received from the University Trustees, who annually determine the president's salary. The president who received the largest compensation package in the 1997-98 fiscal year is former Washington and Jefferson College President Howard Burnett, who earned $1,082,624 upon resigning in June of 1998. Burnett received his regular salary of $223,100 and $29,951 in benefits, but received a deferred compensation bonus of $587,573 -- awarded to him for his 28 years of service to the school -- that pushed him to the top of the listing. He also earned $242,000 for one year's sabbatical in his final year. The special payments made to him when he stepped down were funded entirely by endowment earnings, rather than tuition dollars, according to Matt Conn, the director of college relations at Washington and Jefferson. "You won't see W & J on the top 10 list next year because it's a one-time thing," Conn said yesterday. The second-highest compensated president was Orley Herron, president of National-Louis University in Chicago. Herron received $639,694 in pay and an additional $289,604 in benefits. The Chronicle reported that Herron's $639,694 total compensation package was an "inducement to resign" following his 20-year presidency. Rockefeller University President Torsten Wiesel, the 1981 Nobel Prize winner in medicine and recipient of the largest compensation in 1996-1997, dropped to third with his $555,864 total package. New York University President Jay Oliva earned a total package of $555,372 following a large raise of $100,000 -- enough to make him the fourth-highest paid president. The Chronicle reported that salaries of university presidents remain on the rise, as eight leaders earned more than $500,000 in pay and benefits. An additional 13 presidents received packages that topped the $400,000 mark. And 61 presidents earned between $300,000 and $400,000, up from 33 the year before. But even though Rodin's salary is the highest in the nation, it is not even the highest among fellow Penn administrators. That honor belongs to William Kelley, who serves both as the Penn Health System chief executive officer and dean of the Medical School. Kelley's salary and benefits totaled $1.2 million in the last fiscal year. In September, Rodin announced that she had recommended that neither she nor Kelley receive salary increases in the current fiscal year due to the Health System's recent financial crisis, which includes an estimated $150 million deficit for the fiscal year that ended in June.

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