After Sweet Briar College President James F. Jones Jr. told faculty in early March that the college would not be reopening next year, the faculty also learned that they “might” get severance pay. More information would be forthcoming, they were told.
Faculty were not particularly reassured by this state of affairs. Their plight was particularly dire because March is the tail end of the academic hiring cycle, leaving many potentially out of work for the next year. Some banded together and sued to ensure that they would all be compensated.
They were not the only ones suing ― alumnae were outraged that the college would be closed so abruptly and seemingly without explanation or warning. Ultimately, the alumnae and faculty were victorious, and on Monday, the disparate parties came to a settlement agreement. Per the settlement agreement, the college will stay open for another year, and any faculty or staff member who chooses to leave the college will receive six months of severance pay.
President Jones will resign from his post, but his claim to severance pay was assured from the outset. Having the leverage to write in severance pay into the employment contract from the outset is but one of the perks of being a college president.
Severance packages for college and university president can be quite hefty. It recently came to light that Yale University President Richard C. Levin received $8.5 million as a supplemental pension payment when he stepped down in 2013. However, unless it is an exorbitant amount or there are extenuating circumstances, presidents typically collect their severance pay without much remark from outside parties. After all, the salaries they earn while actually in office are so much more distracting.
According to the Chronicle of Higher Education, which maintains a database of such information, the average college president earned an annual salary of $400,000 in 2012. Some three dozen had annual incomes that topped $1 million. Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson was paid $7,143,312 in 2012 as president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Altruistic figures such as the interim president of Kentucky State University, who shaved off $90,000 from his $349,869 salary in 2014 to help pay the wages of his campus’ lowest paid workers are the exception, not the norm.
A new report out this week from Mercer and Witt/Kieffer takes a step towards shedding more light on trends in severance payments. Mercer partner Karen Hutcheson said, “Colleges and universities are really going under considerable change and part of that is really the changing of the leadership structure.”
