By Laken Franchetti, Editor-in-Chief & Ella Prieto, Managing & News Editor
The faculty meeting on Nov. 16 heavily dealt with a review of Gettysburg College’s financial compensation for faculty. This review found that the average salaries for assistant professors, associate professors and professors are below the College’s peer institutions, and the administration stated that faculty compensation is not where they want it to be.
Following this review, an issue with President Bob Iuliano’s total compensation was raised. Gettysburg College operates as a nonprofit educational institution, thus their public tax reporting must include the salaries and total compensations of the College’s top earners.
Physics professor Kurt Andresen shared that he had looked at this publicly available data and found that the president’s total compensation had increased by about 25% compared to five years ago, when the College was under President Janet Morgan Riggs. Andresen questioned Iuliano on why his compensation had increased at this larger rate.
Iuliano responded to Andresen by stating that he had given up pay raises during the pandemic and also gave back 15% of his compensation.
The Gettysburgian further reviewed the public tax reporting on ProPublica to determine the differences in administrators’ total compensations when compared to six years ago.
The tax reporting highlights that executive compensation has increased by 21.1% between fiscal years 2016 and 2022. In 2022, executive compensation accounted for 1.50% of the College’s total expenses with a value of $3,125,678.
The President’s Total Compensation
A notable change in the past six fiscal years is with Iuliano’s total compensation, which has increased by 20.9% since 2016 when Janet Morgan Riggs was President. Riggs’ last full fiscal year as President was 2019, and she earned $471,608. Iuliano’s last full fiscal year was 2022, and he earned $511,504. The total compensation for this position has thus increased 8.5% between the fiscal years 2019 and 2022.
In research conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education, they investigated the base pay, bonuses and benefits for 307 chief executives at private colleges that had expenditures of $100 million or more in 2020. This study revealed that Iuliano had a total pay of $558,363, including $514,938 as base pay, $0 in bonus pay, $1,806 for “other” and $41,619 in benefits.
Gettysburg College’s like schools have been defined as Connecticut College, Denison University, Dickinson College, Franklin & Marshall College, Lawrence University and Union College. Using the data from The Chronicle of Higher Education, The Gettysburgian has compared the total compensations of chief executives at these schools to Iuliano’s. The chief executives of Franklin & Marshall College, Dickinson College and Connecticut College were found to have lower total compensations while the chief executives of Denison University and Union College had higher. Lawrence University was not included in the data set.
The Vice President for College Advancement’s Total Compensation
Another notable change in total compensation was for the Vice President For College Advancement, a role currently held by Tres Mullis. This role was previously titled Vice President for Development, Alumni and Parent Relations and was held by Robert Kallin. Between the fiscal years 2016, when Kallin served, and 2022, when Mullis served, the total compensation for this position increased 47.3%.
Kallin held this position for over eight years, and his last full fiscal year in this position was 2018. He had received a total compensation of $238,885. Mullis has held this position since February of 2020, and in the fiscal year of 2022, he received a total compensation of $331,129. The total compensation for this position has increased 38.6% between the fiscal years 2018 and 2022.
Susan Eisenhower’s Total Compensation
Expert-in-residence for the Eisenhower Institute (EI) Susan Eisenhower has experienced a 14.3% increase in total compensation between the fiscal years of 2016 and 2022. Her total compensation in 2016 was $223,778, and this increased to $255,682 by 2022.
Eisenhower was a founding director and the first president of EI. In her current position as expert-in-residence, she leads an experiential learning program called Strategy and Leadership in Transformational Times (SALTT), which only runs in the spring semester. Eisenhower also leads the Foundations of Strategy and Leadership program, which is another semester-long experience and includes three sessions.
(Editor’s Note: This article was edited at 10:36 a.m. on December 7, 2023 to include another program that Susan Eisenhower leads. – L. Franchetti)
