Business CEOs could learn something here

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by David Safier

University Presidents don't make megabucks, but they do pretty well. Median salary is about $425,000 for presidents of public universities. A few make as much as a million dollars. Not a bad wage.

It seems like some of the higher paid presidents are voluntarily giving back part of their salaries or refusing raises.

Pat Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education, said he had never heard of such a wave of givebacks.

“When you see a cluster like this,” he said, “it seems like sort of belated recognition that this presidential pay thing has gotten out of hand. People are getting tuition increases, some faculty are facing layoffs, it just doesn’t look too good for presidents, no matter how capable they are, to be getting so much money. Americans have had a touching faith in higher education; it’s losing its good image with the public.”

What a strange notion, refusing money which, according to today's business mores, you have every right to because someone offered it to you. Hell, the size of your salary is a nothing more than an indicator of what you're worth.

It looks like the voluntary salary cuts range from 10-15%. What would that amount to for Richard Adkerson, the CEO of Freeport McMoran Copper & Gold, which is laying off about 600 people from the corporation's Arizona mines? He makes about $65 million a year. That means he'd give back somewhere between six-and-a-half and ten million dollars.

That wouldn't hurt much, Richard, now would it? Your painless sacrifice could save at least a hundred jobs. Imagine how good and noble that would make you feel.

Until your fellow CEOs called you a chump, that is. Do-gooder! Wealth spreader! They'd probably take away your key to the club bathroom and make you golf alone.

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