The job, they say, requires skill in many areas, including fund raising, financial management, and academic affairs, and demands long hours. The presidents are being paid what is fair and necessary, they contend. Presidential candidates, they point out, are negotiating harder for higher compensation these days, even bringing in lawyers to do the bargaining for them. The price that Penn's Ms. Rodin pays, however, hasn't been quite as great as that of others, considering that she held the No. 2 spot in 1998-99. If Ms. Rodin achieves certain goals in a given year, or in a series of years, her compensation will reflect it, he says.
Retention is a factor in it.
If this were a corporation, she'd be paid in multiples. He wasn't being paid sufficiently. Mr. Lipton says that Mr. Oliva's raises are not calibrated to particular achievements. Instead, they reflect the board's satisfaction with his performance at the university, where he started as a professor of Russian history in 1960 and became president in 1991. The board also takes into account the cost of living in New York City.