A buyer's market: VU poised to lure a star as new chancellor

Money is no object to Vanderbilt in replacing Gee, and the job would mean a huge raise for most of the prospects whose names are likely to come up

Email | Print By E. Thomas Wood

[UPDATED 5:58 P.M. with confirmation of Zeppos' appointment as interim chancellor.]

As originally posted:

As the Vanderbilt University Board of Trust meets today to begin the process of finding a new chancellor, only one thing is sure: The person they ultimately hire will pull down a seven-figure compensation package.

Departing Chancellor E. Gordon Gee’s total pay in 2005, the last year for which a public disclosure is available, was $1.25 million. Gee and his predecessor, Joe B. Wyatt, each turned up year after year on the Chronicle of Higher Education's annual list of the most highly compensated collegiate honchos, often near the top. Throughout the nearly two decades that the IRS has required salary disclosure by nonprofit organizations, Vanderbilt's trustees have shown themselves entirely immune to criticism over the amount they are willing to pay their CEO.

Judge the board's compensation strategy as you will, but without question it puts Vanderbilt in a strong position as it looks for someone to fill Gee's shoes. Gee was making more than the heads of many of the nation's most elite universities, and there's no sign that the board would offer his successor any less.

Leaders of such institutions don't change jobs purely for the money, but they do change jobs. The era of 18- or 19-year tenures in office, like those of Wyatt and his predecessor Alexander Heard, is over. In trying to identify possible candidates for the Vanderbilt post, we have zeroed in on several who may share Gee's apparent seven-year-itch, as well as people already connected to Vanderbilt and a few names that could come into play in the unlikely event that the board opts to go the "celebrity chancellor" route.

Academic stars who may be ready for a move

Compiling this part of the list is easier than it might seem because several of its names came into play as Harvard University pondered its presidential opening before it chose an insider, Drew Gilpin Faust, in February of this year. Reportedly making Harvard's shortlist were:

• Shirley M. Tilghman, president of Princeton University since 2001. Tilghman denied she had any interest in the Harvard job. Her 2004 compensation: $633,000.
• Alison Richard, vice chancellor (the equivalent of president) of the University of Cambridge since 2003. An anthropology professor, she worked at Yale for 30 years, including nine as provost. Asked about the Harvard position, Richard said she intends to serve out her term at Cambridge, which expires in 2010. Salary unknown, but universities in the UK historically pay very poorly.
• Steven E. Hyman, Harvard's provost since 2001. A psychiatrist, he previously led the National Institute of Mental Health. 2005 compensation: $417,000; Harvard also made a $750,000 home loan to Hyman in 2005.
• John Etchemendy, Stanford's provost since 2000. Has been at Stanford ever since he took philosophy doctorate there in 1982. 2005 compensation: $433,000.

Two of the most prominent university leaders in the country may also bear scrutiny as potential candidates. They have each been in their current posts for long enough that they may be ready for a change, and despite the stature of their positions, each is making much less money than Gee:

• Lee C. Bollinger, president of Columbia University. Bollinger is First Amendment law scholar whose career path has involved striking parallels to Gee's: Both took undergrad degrees in 1968, both received J.D. degrees from Columbia Law School, both clerked for Chief Justice Warren Burger of the U.S. Supreme Court, and each has held several prestigious academic positions. Bollinger has been dean of University of Michigan Law School (1987-94), provost of Dartmouth College (1994-96), president of University of Michigan (1996-2002) and president of Columbia since 2002. 2005 compensation: $780,000.
• Shirley Ann Jackson, president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. Bill Clinton appointed this physicist as the first woman and first African-American to chair the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission. She sits on the boards of the New York Stock Exchange, IBM and FedEx. Jackson has faced criticism over dramatic changes implemented under a strategic plan she devised for RPI. In April 2006, she won a vote on a faculty motion of no confidence by a margin of only 155 to 149. 2005 compensation: $983,000.

Insiders, and a quasi-insider

Current V.U. Provost Nick Zeppos, who was named interim chancellor late this afternoon, is a conceivable candidate for the permanent job. He is one of two key executives to whom Gee delegated much of the day-to-day operation of the university, the other being David Williams, vice chancellor for university affairs and general counsel.

Many board members are known to hold Williams in very high esteem. If selected, he would be Vanderbilt's first African-American chancellor. But Gee brought Williams in from Ohio State, where the two had worked together before, and one university insider speculated that Williams will follow him back up north, saying: "My guess is that Gordon would try to get David to go with him. He depends on him for so much."

Williams has four, count 'em four, graduate degrees — but no Ph.D. Zeppos doesn't have one either. The lack of that particular sheepskin didn't keep the VU board from choosing Wyatt as chancellor in 1982. It remains to be seen whether today's board will view a doctorate as a must.

One former senior official at Vanderbilt, Thomas G. Burish, has been mentioned as a prospective candidate. Burish left his position as provost at V.U. in 2002 to become president of Washington and Lee University, and then moved on three years later to the provost's post at Notre Dame. Information on Burish's salary at Notre Dame is not available, but his predecessor there made a total of $474,000 in 2005.

The glimmer of celebrity

Let's just come right out and say it: Here's where an already speculative article veers toward the positively loopy. But universities do sometimes seek out a marquee name from somewhere in public life to serve as leader. Columbia installed Eisenhower as its president after the war and before he ran for the American presidency. Former Senator David L. Boren now runs the University of Oklahoma, while former Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala presides at the University of Miami. And of course, Lamar Alexander served a stint as president of the University of Tennessee between his various political roles.

Elements of the local chattering class were talking about Alexander for the V.U. job within an hour after Gee announced his departure. A source in Alexander's U.S. Senate office in Washington quickly put the kibosh on such talk, saying he has no intention of going anywhere. Others have floated the name of Al Gore. We're not holding our breath.

But there is one former public official out there who is also a former Ivy League university chief, as Gee was when Vanderbilt plucked him away from Brown University in 2000 — to the consternation of folks at Brown who thought it awfully rude of Gee and the university to do such a thing. Hiring this person would be a way for V.U. once again to stick a thumb in the eye of the Ivies, and he appears to be available immediately: Former Treasury Secretary and former Harvard President Larry Summers.

Summers found Harvard a snakepit of academic politics, and some at Harvard found him a petty tyrant and loose cannon — although, like Gee, he was very popular among students. Accused of voicing backward views about the intellectual abilities of women, among other offenses, he resigned in 2006.