College and university presidents are well-compensated, and, perhaps, rightly so. Like the CEOs of large corporations, they are responsible, chiefly, for the maintaining and generating of income. So with a down year for endowments, and a budget-constrained future ahead, it's no surprise that several have opted to forgo raises or to return a portion of their salaries back to the schools they helm.

For some who have gone this route, this outward show of generosity smells like a reactionary PR move more than else. Last Tuesday, the day after The Chronicle of Higher Education published its annual survey of presidential salaries, "Amy Gutmann, the president of the University of Pennsylvania, and her husband made a $100,000 gift to the university to support undergraduate research."

Do these donations suggest that that college presidents are overcompensated? Maybe - but maybe not. Except for the president of Suffolk University, who earns a whopping $2.8 million dollars a year for manning a school that no one outside Boston has ever heard of, presidential salaries are roughly equivalent to their for-profit counterparts. And they are much lower than the robber barons, i.e. the heads of investment banks, that are largely responsible for crippling our economy.

Dear Amy, et al.: instead of returning your tax-deductible chump change, how about keeping annual tuition raises at, or under, the rate of inflation?

The Chronicle of Higher Education recently released its annual survey of college presidential pay, and - surprise, surprise - in 2006-7, Ivy League presidents ranked among the nation's top earners. Of the Ancient Eight, Columbia's Lee Bollinger topped the list, receiving a whopping $1,411,894 in pay and benefits, followed by Amy Gutmann (Penn) with $1,088,786; Richard Levin (Yale) with $955,407; Ruth Simmons (Brown) with $775,718; Shirley Tilghman (Princeton) with $742,444; David Skorton (Cornell) with $730,604; and James Wright (Dartmouth) with $569,761. (Derek Bok, who was the interim president at Harvard that year, earned $0.)

Nevertheless, only Bollinger and Gutmann cracked the private school top ten, coming in at fourth and eighth places respectively. (For whatever reason, the Chronicle places private and public school executives in distinct categories; combine the lists together and Bollinger falls to fifth, and Gutmann, to tenth.)

If the highest salaries and benefits aren't going to Ivy presidents, then to whom do they go? Find out (the rather surprising results) after the jump.

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After a tempestuous reign as 16th King of Dartmouth, James Wright announces his retirement with a "profound sense of humility." This is probably because he's main claim to fame is being the fuddy dud who tried to expel the frats -- and failed.
Daniel Belkin '08 explains all.

Amid intense anticipation within alumni circles and enough student apathy to match, President Jim Wright gave the Dartmouth Board of Trustees his two week - er, 16 month - notice. After 11 years as the College's Main Man, President Wright has decided that he is no longer Mr. Right to steer the Big Green into the next decade. "As much as I enjoy serving Dartmouth in my current role, I believe that every institution can benefit from periodic new leadership and fresh ideas," he commented on Monday.

His tenure in Hanover has been peppered with Clinton-level controversies (only with much less sexual innuendo). In 1999, taking a page out of Dean Wormer's playbook, the Administration unveiled the "Student Life Initiative" - a.k.a. the War on Fun - that aimed to close down Frat Row. Obviously, this threw the College into a tizzy. The joint retaliating forces of undergrad boozehounds and alumni with deep pockets carried the day in the end. Recently, Wright became the human punching bag-of-choice for shadowy cabals of alarmist alumni hollering that their beloved "College on the Hill" had devolved into a cold and heartless Harvard-on-the-Connecticut-River. And the brouhaha following the Board's September decision to expand itself by eight-seats (and dilute the power of alumni-elected trustees) spilled onto the broadsheets of the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

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A sad day for journalism when Glamour scoops US News & World Report on the upper education beat, but it happened this month when the former jumped on the "Every crowd around the pretty lady presidents!" bandwagon first. Yesterday's release of US News' "America's Best Leaders"  echoes Glamour's 2007 "Women of the Year" featuring Prezettes Ruth Simmons (Brown) and Shirley Tilghman (Princeton). In USN Simmons and Tilghman sit among notable peoples like Nancy Pelosi, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Nicholas Kristof and Yo-Yo Ma.

Conspicuously missing from the list are fellow "Women of the Year" Drew Gilpin Faust (president, Harvard) and Amy Gutmann (Fairy Jihad-Mother, Penn), whose mere existence as double-X-chromosomed heads of Ivies is usually reason enough to split Simmons' and Tilghman's glory four ways.

We're already salivating for the December issue of Glamour magazine, featuring all four female Ivy League presidents as 2007 Women of the Year.

Prince and DP reports confirm that The Prezettes -- Princeton's Shirley Tilghman, Brown's Ruth Simmons, Harvard's Drew Gilpin Faust, and Penn's Halloween- and maybe-Jihad-loving Amy Gutmann -- will appear in glossy photos alongside the likes of Jennifer Garner, Elizabeth Edwards, and child actress Abigail Breslin. Gutmann has already begun denying the fact that she's totally pumped to get airbrushed:

Though Gutmann doesn't "have much time to read magazines like Glamour," she said she is pleased that the magazine will use the Fund to raise money for charities that support causes for women.

Whatevs, Amy, we know you're excited to get a professional blow-out and glossy photos, and for little girls the world around to cut out your picture and decorate their notebooks with it. For those who can't wait to see if the Gutbomb reprises her strapless red Homecoming dress, fear not! IvyGate will be there for you on November 13 when Women of the Year hits newsstands.

The Chronicle of Higher Education's annual report on executive compensation is in, and there you have it, in primary colors: former Cornell president Jeff Lehman can buy and sell your president before lunch, with enough left over for 375 PlayStation 3's.

Lehman banked $1,004,034 in Ithaca dollars, mind you, further raising the cost-of-living premium over suckers like Larry Summers (sniff) and Lee Bollinger. James Wright of Dartmouth was the big loser, unable to crack the half-mil barrier; in the co-ed, towel-snapping locker room of Ivy presidents past and present, he's the one changing beneath a towel.

Cue ominous music: But what price victory, Jeff? The Sun reported last month that a chunk of Lehman's payout was hush money, to keep him from blabbing about the controversy surrounding his departure.

Moving on, there's more fun to be had with the Chronicle's data, especially in the expense account category. We don't know why Wright and Ruth Simmons are listed as having $0 at their disposal; we do know that it's kinda funny Bollinger gets to blow a full fifth of Wright's entire salary on hookers and goofballs. And poor Dick Levin! Twelve thousand dollars a year? Someone get this man a financial aid package!

Ever since posing for a Halloween photo with a student dressed as a suicide bomber, Penn President Amy Gutmann has been getting star treatment from the Ivy League watchdog cottage industry. Congrats, Amy, you're famous! Here's a quick rundown:  

• The New York Post naturally takes the prize for most creative headline, "DITZY IVY PREXY H'WEEN BALL BOMBS."
• The Weekly Standard puts on a frowny face: "The images are, in fact, disturbingly familiar: Sympathizers of suicide-bombers in the Middle East routinely show solidarity with their 'freedom fighters' by dressing children up in the same type of costumes, complete with plastic dynamite and fake AK-47s."
• The Jerusalem Post is not psyched about Saadi calling himself a "freedom martyr." 
• See the Daily Pennsylvanian for an account that actually acknowledges that the costume was meant to be a joke. Saad Saadi, the student in the photo, says he regrets the photo, but not the costume. Is that one of those "I'm sorry you're offended" apologies? The piece quotes Anti-Defmation League official Barry Morrison: "No right-thinking individual ought to go around in [this] costume unless [he or she] is a suicide bomber or wants to be one."
• The DP also runs a full-length interview with Saadi: "It's the same as dressing up as anything scary."
• Gutmann also apologizes in a guest opinion column, noting that at a party featuring ax murderers, "It's hard to imagine that someone could create an actually offensive costume, but at least one of our students did."

Honestly? Unless you're going as a Katrina refugee named Terri Schiavo with a stingray sticking out of your chest that sends sexual IMs to Congressional pages ... we're not impressed.

Halloween is a fabulous opportunity to make poor decisions. Every year, same story: You start off doing something ironic -- dye your hair, dance to Wham!, get a little too carried away with your Mark Foley costume. Innocent fun. Then you look at the photos the next day and wince at how terrifyingly sincere it all looks.

Well, the unforgiving morning-after eye of Facebook has claimed its latest victim: Penn President Amy Guttman. We're sure it felt hilariously tongue-in-cheek to pose with a student dressed as a suicide bomber at her Halloween party. Apparently these guys didn't get the joke. Li'l Bo Peep Gutmann is a front-runner to be the next president of Harvard, and this is hardly the publicity she needs.

P.S. To be fair, "too soon" costumes were all the rage this year: at one Ivy party in D.C. last week, two girls showed up dressed as Darfurian refugees, alongside a dude with a bandana and scimitar calling himself a Janjaweed militiaman. They saw us wearing a blazer and asked us to be their U.N. negotiator.

P.P.S. We were scared to write about Saad Saadi '06, the student in the photo, when we saw his creepy webpage. Then we learned he's the one who started this Facebook group, so how tough can he be? (Saadi posted an apology to anyone who was offended by the costume, says the web site that found the pic; the text is after the jump.)

UPDATE 8:30 p.m.: Eric Obenzinger, the Daily Pennsylvanian's crack opinion page editor, has an interview with Saadi here.

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Oh please oh please oh please let this email we were forwarded be true! (We emailed the kid, but he's not talking.)

From: "Shirley M. Tilghman" <smt@Princeton.EDU>
Date: Oct. 16, 2006 5:12:04 PM
To: [redacted]@Princeton.EDU
Subject: RE: Special Favor

Dear [redacted],

I am afraid that this is way BELOW my pay scale.  This is NOT something the president should be weighing in on.

Good luck!

SMT

-----Original Message-----
From: [redacted]@princeton.edu
Sent: Monday, October 16, 2006 5:09 PM
To: Shirley M Tilghman (smt@Princeton.EDU)
Subject: Special Favor

President Tilghman,

On Mondays and Tuesdays I work for Public Safety's Shuttle and Lockout services.  I live in Little and after work I swim in Dillon before going to dinner.  Earlier today I asked the parking office if they could give me a permit to park in the Little/Edwards parking lot for one hour twice a week, and they said you were the person to talk to.  Will you help me out?  All I need is 530-630pm on Mondays and 830-930pm on  Tuesdays.

I look forward to hearing from you,
thanks,
[redacted] '07

As president of Princeton University, Shirley Tilghman's pay grade probably is above parking-permit requests (especially a clueless, or prank-y, one like this). But still -- how much do you get paid to be this pretentious, yet still have time to answer the email?

Looks like the Iranian president himself, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, will be speaking at Columbia this Friday, the Spectator reports. Gotta love that First Amendment, huh? If his remarks at the United Nations yesterday were any indication, he plans a rousing disquisition on how the Holocaust never happened. (You wanna handle this one, Mazower?) No word yet on whether the president's popped collar (see above) will make an appearance.

But here's the weirdest part: Columbia President Lee Bollinger doesn't seem to know who invited him! "I happen to find many of President Ahmadinejad's stated beliefs to be repugnant, a view that I'm sure is widely shared within our university community," Bollinger told Spec.

Bollinger also said he wasn't sure the university could accomodate him on such short notice. Gotta love them First Amendment loopholes, huh?

UPDATE 8:48 a.m.: A new version of the story says the dean of the international relations school sent the invite, apparently without consulting her boss. Love it!