CONNECTICUT | October 16, 2000 -- If the latest published salaries of area private college presidents were based on longevity, the Rev. Aloysius P. Kelley, Fairfield University president since 1979, would be making the most instead of the least.
If based on revenues generated, John L. Lahey, president of Quinnipiac University, which grossed $113 million in 1998-99, would not have made $31,000 less than Anthony J. Cernera, president of Sacred Heart University in Fairfield, where revenues were $72 million in that year.
And if enrollment were the deciding factor, Lawrence DeNardis, president of the University of New Haven, wouldn't have made less than Julia M. McNamara, president of Albertus Magnus College in New Haven, or then-University of Bridgeport President Richard Rubenstein. Both led institutions with half the enrollment of UNH's 5,000 in 1998-99.
There are no hard-and-fast rules in setting the salary of college presidents. Generally it depends on what the board of trustees decides to pay and what the president is willing to accept.
But in an age when some college presidents' salaries are soaring toward the half-million dollar mark and others inch up with the rate of inflation, the gap is growing wider -- and in some cases, out of step with faculty salaries.
In 1998-99, the latest year for which figures are available, Yale University's Richard C. Levin made the most of any college president in the state at $391,250. Cernera, at Sacred Heart, came in second, at $361,752, and Quinnipiac's Lahey made $330,000.
Meanwhile, at UB, Rubenstein -- who has since stepped down -- was making $169,125. At Albertus Magnus, McNamara was up to $164,100; at UNH, DeNardis made $159,499; and Kelley, at Fairfield, made $155,250.
Kelley's salary is not a reflection of the job he's doing, said Doug Whiting, a university spokesman. Instead, it's the bar against which other salaries are measured at the Jesuit institution.
"It's a direct effort by the board of trustees to control administrative costs," Whiting said.
Kelley's salary was the highest on campus in 1998-99, but not by much. Vice President for Administration William Miles made $154,003 in the same year, according to the university's 990 form, an income tax form all private institutions must file and make public.
At Yale, meanwhile, Levin's salary was dwarfed by the $688,974 made by David F. Swensen, the school's chief investment officer. At least four professors in the school of medicine also made more than Levin.
At UNH, DeNardis said his salary level is reflective of his personal philosophy.
"It's important to me that the president be compensated in a reasonable relationship to faculty and staff," DeNardis said. "The CEO should share equally with all of the employees."
President since 1991, DeNardis said he has taken the same percentage raise as his faculty and staff each year. If they get 3 percent, he gets 3 percent.
As "benchmarks for success" are met, DeNardis said, salaries rise accordingly and together.
"That's important to create a sense of teamwork," he said. "We have a strong one at the university, in no small part due to the fact that the president is not paid an outrageously high salary compared to the most senior members of the faculty who are important to the mission of the university."
DeNardis isn't willing to define outrageous. Some faculty at SHU are, as long as their names aren't used.
"The faculty are absolutely concerned with how much Cernera makes. It's absolutely unacceptable," said one professor. "His salary is way up there. Our salaries are not."
Cernera's base salary was $265,608 in 1996-97. Two years later, in 1998-99, it was $361,752, making him one of the highest paid presidents in the nation among masters' degree-level colleges and universities.
During the same two-year period, salaries of full professors at Sacred Heart rose an average of 5 percent, to $65,100. Nationwide, the average salary for full professors was $72,721.
Cernera said his compensation package is fair.
"There is very specific criteria on how I am evaluated. I think if you look at my salary against other presidents now it's comparable," he said.
Cernera is in his 13th year as president and there's no denying Sacred Heart is very different than when he arrived. Once a dying commuter college, Sacred Heart is now called the "third largest Catholic college in New England." Its enrollment has nearly doubled, its budgets are balanced and a majority of full-time undergraduates now live on campus.
Kristy Pacelli, a Sacred Heart junior from Plainville, said Cernera earns what he makes.
"I don't know many other colleges where students can e-mail the president to ask for help with research and he responds back in two days with great suggestions," Pacelli said.
She also took a class Cernera taught and said he's an amazing professor.
Academically, Cernera said this year's class is "the best class we've ever had."
That, he said, doesn't happen overnight.
"And not without the faculty," said the SHU professor, who added faculty members are seriously considering forming a union. A decision, brewing for nearly a year, could come as soon as this week.
Faculty unions on private colleges are rare. But Quinnipiac University has one. The Quinnipiac Faculty Federation is affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers and is in the midst of a four-year contract that runs through 2001-02.
There's no correlation to be drawn between faculty salaries at Quinnipiac and Lahey's salary, said Mark Gius, an economics professor and president of the faculty senate at Quinnipiac.
Still, the average faculty salaries at Quinnipiac are $8,000 to $20,000 higher than Sacred Heart's, depending on rank.
Gius has never been involved in faculty negotiations but said he doubts Lahey's salary is much of a bargaining chip.
"Usually boards reward presidents doing very well by giving them nice big salaries and Lahey has done pretty well for Quinnipiac in the 13 years he's been here," he said.
Mike Serpee, a spokesman at Albertus Magnus, believes that's probably the thinking that went into McNamara's 1998-99 raise as well.
No longer the lowest paid college president in the area, McNamara has been at Albertus Magnus 17 years. The last several have seen an upsurge in enrollment to an all-time high of 2,075 this year.
Tiny compared to a Yale, or even UNH, Serpee points out that at Albertus McNamara has less staff, so more to do.
"If there's a fire drill at 3 a.m. in the dorm, she gets called. It really is constant. She's involved in everything," Serpee said. "From my perspective, college presidents of any size college work a lot harder than I ever thought they did."
After McNamara's $164,100, the next highest salary is $69,500, earned by Albertus Treasurer Jeanne Mann. Fewer than a dozen faculty or administrators at Albertus made more than $50,000 a year in 1998-99.
"Presidents are in a very good position to lobby for their own wages," said Jamie Horwitz, a spokesman for the American Federation of Teachers in Washington. "Others generally are not."
Horwitz sees a bipolar situation developing between university presidents who pull down six-figure salaries and faculty.
If it's not a bargaining chip for faculty, it should be, Horwitz said.
"University presidents pay an important role but faculty are the people who are teaching students," he said.
If a board thinks a president should be rewarded, the faculty should be adequately compensated as well, agreed Iris Molotsky, director of communications for the American Association of University Professors.
There is no question, she said, that the gap between administrators and faculty is growing wider each year.
