University President Michael Roth has seen his salary as the school’s chief executive rapidly increase in just the past few years.
Roth’s total compensation in 2013 was $735,393, according to a database of private and public college executive compensation packages compiled The Chronicle of Higher Education (2013 is the most recent year for which this data is available). That year, he received $506,995 in base pay, $100,000 in bonuses, $120,148 in nontaxable compensation (which includes things like health care and other benefits), and $8,250 in “other” compensation.
In 2012, the year before, Roth’s total compensation was $693,607. After his first full year as president, in 2008, Roth’s compensation was $535,344.
In comparison, the average salary of a full professor at the University was $136,314, and the sticker cost for tuition was $47,244 in 2013.
With his salary, Roth placed 73rd among all chief executives in pay, up from 79th in 2012. It is higher than the median pay, $428,250, and has recently risen higher than most of Wesleyan’s peer institutions. For example, Adam F. Falk, Williams College’s president since 2010, was compensated $573,624 in 2013.
That year, Roth also received more than the presidents of Bard College, Bates College, Bowdoin College, Colby College, Hamilton College, Middlebury College, and Trinity College. In the NESCAC, only the presidents of Tufts University and Connecticut College made more. (Data for Amherst College was not available for 2013.)
The Chronicle also includes the compensation for the top-paid administrators and faculty at Wesleyan. The highest-paid professor in 2013 was Professor of Film Studies, Curator for the Center for Film Studies, and Corwin-Fuller Professor of Film Studies Jeanine Basinger, as has been the case for the past few years.
Roth became the 16th president of Wesleyan University on July 1, 2007.