The hierarchy puts a lot of emphasis on deans and college presidents, etc. How did they become the rock stars of the education industry? Are they really all that irreplaceable? Can’t you just cut all their salaries in half and still get ten qualified applicants for every position?
Trust me, most profs don’t want the responsibility (and burden) of being deans. There’s a lot of administrative work, refereeing petty squabbles, and generally making decisions that have a good number of your faculty colleagues unhappy with you. Your time for teaching and research disappears. You also have the beat the bushes for cash on a fairly regular basis… and your spouse, if you have one, gets to take on the role of co-host for so many of these important functions.
I don’t relish the opportunity to serve as a dean, though if I make it through the academic meatgrinder I am one of those who would probably volunteer to do it. I think as a general consensus, there is very little gnashing of teeth over how our dean is rewarded monetarily compared to the humble faculty. Ditto for the president.
I’ll show that stuffy old dean :mad:
Then run multi-million dollar enterprises, they do not have tenure, and they are in the spotlight. Measurement occurs with every US News rankings issue, and there is a PR nightmare on a regular basis as kids are kids.
They are in charge of faculty, but not really - so think about being the CEO of a very public firm, where your top engineers can tell you to piss off with no fear for their own job.
I have seen some crappy administrators, and some great ones. I have also seen some up-and-comers go to the private sector for 2x the pay.
For the most part, staff positions at a University suck. There are, however, a few that pay well - but an equivalent gig in the real world would pay a LOT more.
As noted above, college presidents are basically CEO’s and deans are directors in the equivalent corporate world but they usually don’t get stock options. It is a tough job and requires many different types of talent including speaking ability, organizational ability, the balls to make hard decisions, and an understanding of both teaching and research in a large institution. The market sets their rates for the most part but they are uncompensated by corporate standards. Vice presidents in large companies can easily make $500,000 a year without the same level of responsibility by a long shot. There are football coaches at the big football powerhouses that make more than the university president does but that is driven by the market as well.
It’s tough to find an undergraduate to do all your work when you’re the boss.
Most deans are professors promoted up the ladder until finally they receive the title and pay (usually low six-figures today) that comes with it, but they’re rarely happier than they were as profs. By the time you’re to that level it’s all about politics and money- it’s big business, not education. It is ironic that in academia the further you get away from the students the more money you make, but there’s a reason for it.
The best professors and scholars, incidentally, often make the worst administrators.
As has already been pointed out, the professor’s job is typically far more rewarding in non-financial ways than the administrator’s.
Also, it is often part of the president/administrators job to bring money in to the institution, by cultivating relationships with wealthy alumni, corporations, etc.