The base salary of the most highly compensated chief executive of a private nonprofit institution in 2015 — Nathan O. Hatch, of Wake Forest University — represented just 21 percent of his pay. He received $2.89 million in a payout of deferred compensation that year. The highest-paid female chief executive was Amy Gutmann, of the University of Pennsylvania, who ranked fourth on the list. Only nine of the 50 highest-paid chief executives of private nonprofit colleges were women, with just two female leaders breaking into the top 10.
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| 1. | Nathan O. Hatch | Wake Forest U. | $4,004,617 | $839,944 | 21.0% |
| 2. | James W. Wagner | Emory U. | $3,510,451 | $991,460 | 28.2% |
| 3. | C.L. Max Nikias | U. of Southern California | $3,182,364 | $1,170,277 | 36.8% |
| 4. | Amy Gutmann | U. of Pennsylvania | $3,086,395 | $1,259,172 | 40.8% |
| 5. | Robert J. Zimmer | U. of Chicago | $2,864,887 | $1,056,288 | 36.9% |
| 6. | Lee C. Bollinger | Columbia U. | $2,507,637 | $1,340,781 | 53.5% |
| 7. | Robert A. Brown | Boston U. | $2,483,146 | $883,574 | 35.6% |
| 8. | Daniel J. Curran | U. of Dayton | $2,442,168 | $611,495 | 25.0% |
| 9. | Joanne K. Glasser* | Bradley U. | $2,350,851 | $201,115 | 8.6% |
| 10. | David E. Van Zandt | New School | $2,081,584 | $696,681 | 33.5% |
| 11. | Joseph W. Polisi | Juilliard School | $1,983,788 | $686,398 | 34.6% |
| 12. | Stephen K. Klasko | Thomas Jefferson U. | $1,944,932 | $1,338,050 | 68.8% |
| 13. | John A. Fry | Drexel U. | $1,913,914 | $758,207 | 39.6% |
| 14. | Paula S. Wallace | Savannah College
of Art and Design | $1,901,846 | $876,630 | 46.1% |
| 15. | Catharine Bond Hill | Vassar College | $1,774,446 | $438,837 | 24.7% |
| 16. | David W. Leebron | Rice U. | $1,730,998 | $838,000 | 48.4% |
| 17. | Anthony G. Collins | Clarkson U. | $1,720,982 | $496,770 | 28.9% |
| 18. | George L. Hanbury II | Nova Southeastern U. | $1,686,385 | $671,953 | 39.9% |
| 19. | Victor J. Boschini Jr. | Texas Christian U. | $1,578,750 | $1,070,881 | 67.8% |
| 20. | Peter W. Butler | Rush U. | $1,572,095 | $820,075 | 52.2% |
| 21. | Drew Gilpin Faust | Harvard U. | $1,565,251 | $852,920 | 54.5% |
| 22. | Morton O. Schapiro | Northwestern U. | $1,527,994 | $956,614 | 62.6% |
| 23. | Donna E. Shalala* | U. of Miami | $1,472,442 | $500,000 | 34.0% |
| 24. | John L. Lahey | Quinnipiac U. | $1,455,168 | $1,060,000 | 72.8% |
| 25. | Joseph E. Aoun | Northeastern U. | $1,449,254 | $805,515 | 55.6% |
| 26. | Shirley Ann Jackson | Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute | $1,425,669 | $1,065,000 | 74.7% |
| 27. | George E. Martin | St. Edward’s U. | $1,397,470 | $449,783 | 32.2% |
| 28. | Nicholas S. Zeppos | Vanderbilt U. | $1,384,985 | $1,004,492 | 72.5% |
| 29. | Kenneth W. Starr | Baylor U. | $1,362,956 | $660,360 | 48.5% |
| 30. | Ronald J. Daniels | Johns Hopkins U. | $1,336,294 | $1,122,510 | 84.0% |
| 31. | Dennis J. Murray | Marist College | $1,317,122 | $487,541 | 37.0% |
| 32. | Joel Seligman | U. of Rochester | $1,296,635 | $1,203,174 | 92.8% |
| 33. | Richard H. Brodhead | Duke U. | $1,257,980 | $950,754 | 75.6% |
| 34. | Edward Guiliano | New York Institute of Technology | $1,246,951 | $721,133 | 57.8% |
| 35. | Steven Knapp | George Washington U. | $1,224,555 | $909,155 | 74.2% |
| 36. | Mark S. Wrighton | Washington U. in St. Louis | $1,219,667 | $943,073 | 77.3% |
| 37. | Subra Suresh | Carnegie Mellon U. | $1,205,311 | $775,507 | 64.3% |
| 38. | John L. Hennessy | Stanford U. | $1,202,934 | $983,094 | 81.7% |
| 39. | Charles F. Monahan Jr. | MCPHS U. | $1,173,931 | $746,000 | 63.6% |
| 40. | Peter Salovey | Yale U. | $1,157,488 | $948,084 | 81.9% |
| 41. | Barbara R. Snyder | Case Western Reserve U. | $1,152,836 | $700,312 | 60.8% |
| 42. | Julio Frenk* | U. of Miami | $1,136,364 | $411,258 | 36.2% |
| 43. | Stuart Rabinowitz | Hofstra U. | $1,125,942 | $750,779 | 66.7% |
| 44. | R. Gerald Turner | Southern Methodist U. | $1,088,246 | $686,708 | 63.1% |
| 45. | Nido Qubein | High Point U. | $1,080,026 | $665,214 | 61.6% |
| 46. | Christina Hull Paxson | Brown U. | $1,067,491 | $682,000 | 63.9% |
| 47. | Philip Hanlon | Dartmouth College | $1,067,366 | $898,777 | 84.2% |
| 48. | Robert Fisher | Belmont U. | $1,059,664 | $1,022,156 | 96.5% |
| 49. | Steadman Upham | U. of Tulsa | $1,056,885 | $931,236 | 88.1% |
| 50. | Cornelius M. Kerwin | American U. | $1,050,610 | $681,369 | 64.9% |
*Served for only part of 2015
Note: Rank is for total compensation in the 2015 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 568 presidents and chancellors who served at 500 institutions for all or part of 2015. The average total compensation for leaders in office for the full year at those institutions was $569,932. 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 here. Questions or comments on the Almanac should be sent to the Almanac editor.
Source: Chronicle analysis of U.S. Department of Education data</small></p>