Former Penn President Liz Magill earned $1.02 million in 2023 — her first, and only full, year in office.
According to Penn's most recent tax filings reviewed by The Daily Pennsylvanian, Magill’s base salary between July 1, 2022 and June 30, 2023 was $723,051 and she received a bonus of $104,329. Her total reportable compensation was $869,750, and she received an estimated amount of other compensation of $146,227.
A University spokesperson had not responded to a request for comment by time of publication. The tax filings do not encompass the time period of Magill's resignation, which means they do not report any severance that Penn may have paid Magill after she stepped down.
Without adjustment for inflation, Magill's total compensation in her first year in office is higher than that earned by former President Amy Gutmann, who was paid $802,040 in the fiscal year ending June 2005, her first year as president.
The DP previously reported that Penn paid Gutmann nearly $23 million in 2021, her last year in office, according to University tax filings. Gutmann herself was paid $941,530 alone in fiscal year 2023.
The tax filings show that most of Gutmann’s 2021 earnings — $20.3 million — accumulated in the form of deferred compensation and investment gains over the course of her 18-year tenure as president. Gutmann's 2023 pay included $671,350 in bonus compensation — suggesting that her deferred compensation continues to accumulate over two years since she left the Penn presidency.
Penn also issued Gutmann a $3.7 million home loan in her final years in office — rivaling the largest-ever loan issued to a college administrator in the Ivy League — the DP reported. The loan has not yet been repaid, according to the most recent tax filings.
Gutmann was previously the highest-paid president in the Ivy League in 2019 and was the fifth-highest paid out of all private college presidents in terms of total pay that year.
Magill had a short tenure as president, lasting 526 days — the shortest of any permanent Penn president. She was the first Penn president to step down beyond government appointment, resigning on Dec. 9, 2023 after being nominated as Penn’s ninth president in January 2022, and beginning her tenure on July 1, 2022.
Magill resigned amid national backlash over a series of antisemitism controversies. The announcement came amid unprecedented national scrutiny over Magill's remarks at a congressional hearing of the United States House Committee on Education and the Workforce and almost two months after several alumni and donors called for her resignation following the Palestine Writes Literature Festival and Hamas' attack on Israel.
At the hearing, Magill initially said it was "context dependent" when Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.) asked her whether calling for the genocide of Jewish people violates Penn’s code of conduct. Stefanik referenced calls for "Intifada revolution" among some protesters on campus as calls for genocide.
Her comments fueled dozens of congressmen calling for Magill's removal, a House committee opening an investigation into Penn with the threat of subpoenas, and the Wharton Board of Advisors repeatedly calling for a change in University leadership.
The tax filings also reported the compensation for other top University administrators. Larry Jameson, now interim president who served as the executive vice president of the University of Pennsylvania for the Health System and dean of the Perelman School of Medicine during the 2023 fiscal year, earned $6.31 million in 2023, the second-highest compensation of any official.
He earned $5.08 million in reportable compensation and $2.75 million in other compensation with a base salary of $2.41 million. His salary as interim president will not be available until Penn submits its 2024 tax filings next year.
Before arriving at Penn, Magill earned a salary of $675,000 as provost at the University of Virginia for the 2022 fiscal year, according to The Cavalier Daily.
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