The base salary of the most highly compensated chief executive of a private nonprofit institution in 2014 — Jack P. Varsalona, of Wilmington University, in Delaware — represented less than 10 percent of his pay. He received more than $4.6 million in a payout of deferred compensation that year. In contrast, two other leaders — Jerry Falwell Jr., of Liberty University, and Joel Seligman, of the University of Rochester — made it into the top 50 based almost entirely on their salaries alone.
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| 1. | Jack P. Varsalona | Wilmington U. (Del.) | $5,449,405 | $427,345 | 7.8% |
| 2. | Mark S. Wrighton | Washington U. in St. Louis
| $4,185,866 | $943,583 | 22.5% |
| 3. | R. Gerald Turner | Southern Methodist U. | $3,354,128 | $664,342 | 19.8% |
| 4. | Amy Gutmann | U. of Pennsylvania | $2,962,708 | $1,216,096 | 41.0% |
| 5. | Lee C. Bollinger | Columbia U. | $2,447,032 | $1,298,577 | 53.1% |
| 6. | Morton O. Schapiro | Northwestern U. | $2,352,578 | $924,658 | 39.3% |
| 7. | Robert Fisher | Belmont U. | $2,120,091 | $1,019,999 | 48.1% |
| 8. | Robert J. Zimmer | U. of Chicago | $2,051,089 | $1,021,671 | 49.8% |
| 9. | James F. Jones Jr. | Trinity College (Conn.) | $1,661,794 | $452,606 | 27.2% |
| 10. | David J. Skorton | Cornell U. | $1,618,328 | $872,800 | 53.9% |
| 11. | Donna E. Shalala | U. of Miami | $1,570,761 | $1,095,833 | 69.8% |
| 12. | C.L. Max Nikias | U. of Southern California | $1,525,297 | $1,108,597 | 72.7% |
| 13. | Ronald R. Thomas | U. of Puget Sound | $1,509,650 | $475,529 | 31.5% |
| 14. | Arthur F. Kirk Jr. | Saint Leo U. | $1,509,342 | $388,863 | 25.8% |
| 15. | Lewis M. Duncan* | Rollins College | $1,497,248 | $251,100 | 16.8% |
| 16. | John E. Sexton | New York U. | $1,484,685 | $1,242,948 | 83.7% |
| 17. | Ronald J. Daniels | Johns Hopkins U. | $1,417,109 | $1,074,411 | 75.8% |
| 18. | Nicholas S. Zeppos | Vanderbilt U. | $1,377,924 | $947,489 | 68.8% |
| 19. | Shirley Ann Jackson | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $1,331,172 | $1,000,000 | 75.1% |
| 20. | Victor J. Boschini Jr. | Texas Christian U. | $1,324,540 | $1,042,233 | 78.7% |
| 21. | William D. Adams* | Colby College | $1,298,075 | $220,980 | 17.0% |
| 22. | John A. Fry | Drexel U. | $1,284,630 | $802,218 | 62.4% |
| 23. | Steadman Upham | U. of Tulsa | $1,221,152 | $704,620 | 57.7% |
| 24. | Robert A. Brown | Boston U. | $1,218,869 | $856,182 | 70.2% |
| 25. | Joel Seligman | U. of Rochester | $1,218,170 | $1,128,582 | 92.6% |
| 26. | Richard H. Brodhead | Duke U. | $1,200,386 | $911,794 | 76.0% |
| 27. | Steven Knapp | George Washington U. | $1,170,264 | $873,191 | 74.6% |
| 28. | John L. Lahey | Quinnipiac U. | $1,157,272 | $848,000 | 73.3% |
| 29. | Barbara R. Snyder | Case Western Reserve U. | $1,154,775 | $718,493 | 62.2% |
| 30. | David E. Van Zandt | New School | $1,122,876 | $631,125 | 56.2% |
| 31. | Joseph E. Aoun | Northeastern U. | $1,090,414 | $755,306 | 69.3% |
| 32. | Nathan O. Hatch | Wake Forest U. | $1,084,511 | $816,207 | 75.3% |
| 33. | James W. Wagner | Emory U. | $1,075,464 | $937,000 | 87.1% |
| 34. | John L. Hennessy | Stanford U. | $1,051,338 | $884,765 | 84.2% |
| 35. | David W. Leebron | Rice U. | $1,048,994 | $820,411 | 78.2% |
| 36. | Edward L. Ayers | U. of Richmond | $1,044,367 | $516,255 | 49.4% |
| 37. | Andrew K. Benton | Pepperdine U. | $1,038,605 | $423,572 | 40.8% |
| 38. | Nido Qubein | High Point U. | $1,018,707 | $662,617 | 65.0% |
| 39. | John I. Jenkins | U. of Notre Dame | $1,005,548 | $680,812 | 67.7% |
| 40. | Anthony J. Catanese | Florida Institute of Technology | $995,323 | $582,500 | 58.5% |
| 41. | Peter Salovey | Yale U. | $977,219 | $845,240 | 86.5% |
| 42. | Cornelius M. Kerwin | American U. | $972,741 | $649,868 | 66.8% |
| 43. | Drew Gilpin Faust | Harvard U. | $969,830 | $810,884 | 83.6% |
| 44. | L. Rafael Reif | Massachusetts Institute of Technology | $954,887 | $796,966 | 83.5% |
| 45. | Wayne Frederick | Howard U. | $953,104 | $832,450 | 87.3% |
| 46. | Philip Hanlon | Dartmouth College | $940,889 | $815,635 | 86.7% |
| 47. | Frederick M. Lawrence | Brandeis U. | $937,752 | $723,440 | 77.1% |
| 48. | William W. Destler | Rochester Institute of Technology | $927,738 | $800,330 | 86.3% |
| 49. | Jerry Falwell Jr. | Liberty U. | $926,634 | $896,610 | 96.8% |
| 50. | Douglas N. Hastad | Carroll U. | $905,003 | $392,320 | 43.4% |
*Served for only part of 2014
Note: Rank is for total compensation in the 2014 calendar year. Included in total compensation, in addition to base pay, are bonus pay, nontaxable benefits like medical benefits, severance pay, payouts of deferred compensation, and any other reportable pay. Not counted is deferred or retirement compensation set aside in the calendar year to be paid out in later years. The Chronicle’s analysis is based on data for the private nonprofit baccalaureate, master’s, and doctoral institutions with the 500 largest endowments, as reported to the U.S Department of Education’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System. The top-50 list is drawn from data covering 516 presidents and chancellors who served at 499 institutions for all or part of 2014. The average total compensation for leaders in office for the full year at those institutions was $512,987. Nonprofit colleges that do not report the value of their endowments to the Education Department were excluded from the analysis. Compensation data were compiled from the Internal Revenue Service’s Form 990, which is filed by most nonprofit entities. Some private nonprofit universities cite a religious exemption from filing the Form 990 and were excluded from the analysis. Complete data can be found at www.chronicle.com/interactives/executive-compensation.