A cluster of Boston University students collectively rolled their eyes when The Boston Globe reported that our own President Robert Brown was the “highest paid private college president in Massachusetts in 2013, and the only one in the state who earned more than $1 million.”
The annual survey that the Globe cited, conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, was released on Sunday, and confirmed Brown was paid $1.18 million in salary and benefits — a 2 percent increase from the year before. The median salary for college presidents in 2013 was $436,429, the Globe reported.
“At BU, Brown’s base salary is $828,861, plus $101,548 in other income and $252,125 in nontaxable benefits, most of which is the fair market rental value of the presidential home,” the Globe wrote. “Trustees set Brown’s salary based on a number of variables, ‘including his leadership and the measurable impact which it has on the university’ … ”
What’s concerning for some of the student body is that Brown may not be entirely deserving of this expansive salary because he simply isn’t present in our community. We all saw him for a moment at our matriculation ceremonies, and many of us won’t see him again until we are walking down the aisle at our graduation ceremonies.
We don’t want to make presumptions about how hard it is to run this university, but we are interested in understanding the personality of the man who represents us on such a global level. It’s difficult for many of us to understand Brown’s leadership abilities because he relies heavily upon Dean of Students Kenneth Elmore and his staff, and Elmore is a great deal more accessible than Brown has ever been. Brown is running this institution, but he certainly isn’t doing so alone.
Perhaps this is for public relations reasons — Brown may be shy and unwilling. Or, he just may not be suited to talk to us.
But take, for example, Columbia University President Lee Bollinger, the highest-paid private college president. According to the survey, his salary tops off at $4.6 million. Bollinger, though, participates in active communication with his students. He has a relationship with them that shows he can handle both the corporate aspects of his job and the student-relations part of his job.
Perhaps Brown deserves this salary in the vein of the corporate system — but that system is arguably corrupt in itself. We have adjunct faculty, who are directly responsible for students’ learning and coursework, who are as a whole still fighting for their rights. The distribution of wealth seems skewed, and maybe if every staff or faculty member at BU was happy with their salary, we would be having a different conversation.
We have students who spend their families’ life savings to be here, and we just want to know where those life savings are going. Brown’s salary seems outlandish in that he doesn’t have to pay a mortgage or any other expenses that are common to most of us.
We aren’t asking for Brown to attend our classes with us or to walk with us down Commonwealth Avenue to grab a Jamba Juice. What we are asking for is more transparency: we want to know who is actually completing the tasks at hand.
We understand that President Brown is the acting CEO of the corporation that is Boston University, and he is likely deserving of his salary in that he has completed “big picture” tasks that have greatly improved our ranking as a university, and have made our degrees more valuable. We aren’t the only student body in this country to face problems with our administration. We aren’t the only students who experience lack of representation or poor responses to sexual assault cases. We are dealing with powerful people and powerful money. Spokesman Colin Riley is right — for the most part, we are proud to attend BU, and we are proud to have Brown’s name on our diplomas.
Perhaps the university pays Brown more to enhance our appearance to the outside world — we have a lot of money, but we want to look like we have even more money. Harvard University already has the funds and the credibility. BU has the credibility, but now we need the funds.
Sometimes we imagine President Brown sitting in his office at 1 Silber Way, overlooking the Charles River, thinking, I want what they have. And he isn’t wrong to want that, and he is arguably doing the best he can to get us to that point, both financially and in terms of overall representation.
You by no means need a charismatic person to get things done. But you do need someone who feels even a little bit accessible. That being said, salaries aren’t assigned based upon friendliness.
President Brown has led the effort in raising nearly $1 billion for the university endowment in 2 years, half the time of the original goal of the Campaign. His salary, including the housing allowance, is less than 1 percent of that.
Do you really think he’s overpaid if he brought in that much in just 2 years? This is the problem that students don’t seem to understand; a university president has many lieutenants who handle the actual administration and day-to-day functions of the university. His job is not to be involved in the minutiae of Boston University. He gets paid to represent the university on a larger level and to grow its finances, ensuring that your degree will always come with a first class reputation.
Perhaps you should look into the wonderful staff of administrators at the Provost’s office to find out about academics, the staff at the Dean of Student’s office for student life, and individual departments for their day-to-day management.