All Posts Tagged With: "Indira Samarasekera"
The million dollar president
UAlberta buys president’s house for $930,000
University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera has had a very good year. Not only did she bag a whopping $936,000 in compensation and benefits during the 2009-10 fiscal year, but she also made a lucrative real estate deal − by selling her house to the university.
Yes, that’s right. The University of Alberta purchased Samarasekera’s home on July 1, 2009 for $930,000, according to the Edmonton Journal. The house was bought to be the official residence of the president and Samarasekera continues to live in it, although she now pays rent to the university.
A handful of other universities including the University of British Columbia and the University of Toronto also own houses in which the president lives. The residences double as venues for meetings and social activities related to university business. The added bonus of housing is a perk that also comes in handy when recruiting new presidents, Brian Heidecker, chairman of the board of governors, told the Journal. “The fact that you have a very good quality home available makes recruiting infinitely easier, and it makes the transition for the president much easier if they happen to be an outsider.”
What is odd about U of A’s decision to buy the home is not only that they purchased it from the current president, but that the home is off campus. Customarily, president residences are on-campus estates that are maintained by the university and conveniently located for university functions. U of A hasn’t provided housing for presidents for decades, and one of the last presidents to make use of an official residence (Walter Johns, who was president from 1959 to 1969) didn’t like being roused from his sleep by drunk students walking through campus in the middle of the night. Since then, presidents have lived off campus.
Before the sale, Samarasekera’s home was used for some university functions, and the university paid some operating costs to her. According to Heidecker, the house worked so well for these events that the board decided it should be owned by the university. “It was to our mutual benefit that we owned the house instead of Indira.” While I’m sure that the house serves its purpose as a venue to entertain just fine, it’s seems only prudent to look for other houses that would be more appropriate, and its unclear if the board shopped around before the purchase.
The Journal also makes the valid point that the timing of the deal could be seen as unfortunate by critics. When the sale was being arranged, U of A knew of looming funding cuts that would lead to layoffs, increased fees for students and unpaid furloughs for staff.
House sale news aside, the other interesting nugget of information in the Journal report is Samarasekera’s compensation. With a base salary of $479,000, her non-cash benefits pushed her total compensation to $936,000, making her one of the highest paid university officials in Canada by a wide margin. The top paid academic in Ontario in 2009, according to data released by the Ontario government, was Amit Chakma, vice-president academic and provost at the University of Waterloo, who bagged a whopping $737,640 in compensation plus $3,505 in benefits. The second highest paid university official was William Moriarty, president and CEO of the University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation, who was paid $605,728 in 2009.
Photo: University of Alberta president Indira Samarasekera
Tipping the gender scale
Women outnumber men on Canadian campuses, and admin should steer clear of the gap
The boys are back on campus. At least in the United States.
According to a report by the American Council on Education, the gender gap on campuses has stabilized as the number of men enrolled in bachelor’s programs increases.
So, does this mean Canadian men will soon follow suit? Are the days of the female majority on campus numbered? Should we scrap plans for aggressive male-recruitment initiatives?
Who knows. Who cares. And definitely.
It’s no secret that for the past few years, women have outnumbered men in Canadian undergraduate enrollment. But lately, it’s become a problem. At least for some.
“I’m going to be an advocate for young white men,” Indira Samarasekera, president of the University of Alberta, told the Edmonton Journal last October. Samarasekera said she’s concerned about what the future will look like because of this gender imbalance. “The [. . .] worry is that we’ll wake up in 20 years and we will not have the benefit of enough male talent at the heads of companies and elsewhere.”
Ah, I’d like to see her stand at the front of a women’s gender studies class and say that.
Hilarious mental pictures aside, I cannot grasp this incessant push for (assisted) equality. To what end are we to ensure that men and women are equally represented in all programs and fields? When does ‘some’ presence become ‘enough’? And does it not undermine the capabilities of an individual or group for one to become a self-appointed hand-holder?
Apparently not. “There is a feeling men can take care of themselves – clearly that is not true,” Samarasekera told the Globe and Mail. “If that were true, we wouldn’t be seeing this growing gap.”
Whether or not the gap is indeed budding, the meddling should be nipped. Even if women outnumber men in lecture chairs now, I’m sure there will be a suit and tie or two behind the CEO desk later.
Editor’s note: This post has been updated
Who’s in the $500,000 club?
Who is Canada’s most highly paid academic? Surprise: he isn’t a university president
What does it take to make half a million dollars in a year? According to new figures, released by the government of Ontario today under the province’s decade-old “sunshine law,” two university administrators did just that.
Also, for the second year in a row, the province’s most well-compensated university officer isn’t a president. And one of the province’s most highly compensated university presidents is a former president who stepped down nearly two years ago. These are just some of the revelations in Ontario’s salary disclosures from 2008, which were released mid-day Tuesday on a provincial government website.
John Lyon, University of Toronto’s managing director of investment strategy topped the list with a salary of $494,598, with taxable benefits of $62,876, which brought his total compensation to $557,474.
For full OnCampus coverage of university salaries 2009, click here.
Coming in a close second place was McMaster University president Peter George, who made $524,435, with taxable benefits of $9,478, for total earnings of $533,913 last year. That’s up nearly 6 per cent from his pay the year before, which hit $505,000 in salary and benefits.
Other top earners include University of Waterloo President David Johnston, who made $488,242 total compensation and York University President Mamdouh Shoukri, who, despite his university’s lengthy strike, took home $484,357. In fifth place was University of Guelph president Alastair Summerlee, who made a total of $464,013.
One of the surprises was to find York’s former president, Lorna Marsden, still on the list. Marsden stepped down from the chief executive role in the spring of 2007, and was replaced by Shoukri. However, York in 2008 still has Marsden on the payroll as “president emerita” – and paid her $412,000. That’s more than is paid to most regular, still-on-the-job university presidents.
One other surprise: the most highly paid academic in Canada isn’t at an Ontario university. Ontario university presidents are apparently earning less than some of their peers at Western Canada’s largest universities. Continuing a trend first noticed last year, there are six senior administrators in Western Canada who reported salary and benefits worth more than the package given to Ontario’s most highly paid university president, Peter George. On the list are the president of the University of Calgary, the president of the University of British Columbia, and four executives at the University of Alberta, including President Indira Samarasekera, who received total compensation worth $627,000, or nearly $100,000 more than George. But one of the U of A’s vice-presidents, VP of facilities and operations Don Hickey, earned more than his boss. In 2007-08 he received total remuneration and benefits worth $688,000 — making him Canada’s most highly paid academic.
Go West, ambitious university president
Pay packages appear to be bigger out West — but that may be because BC and Alberta disclosure is more honest
Aspiring university presidents and senior academics looking to maximize their market value may want to look to Western Canada, where the leading universities appear to be offering their top executives compensation superior to that offered in the rest of Canada.
According to the most recent salary disclosures, at least six Western Canadian university administrators are making more than Ontario’s most highly paid university president, McMaster University’s Peter George. In 2008, George reported salary and benefits worth $534,000. During the 2007-08 fiscal year, four senior executives at the University of Alberta, including the president, were paid more. Indira Samarasekera, the U of A’s president, received salary and benefits worth $627,000. Her number two, provost Carl Amrhein, earned $618,000. Two other executives at the U of A earned more: Phyllis Clark, VP of finance and administration, received total compensation worth $654,000 and Don Hickey, VP of facilities and operations, received $668,000.
The president of the University of Calgary, Harvey Weingarten, earned $557,000 in total compensation in 2008. Stephen Toope, president of the University of British Columbia, received total compensation worth $579,000.
In Ontario, the next highest paid president after McMaster’s George is Waterloo’s David Johnston; in 2008, he received $488,000 in total compensation. The third most highly paid Ontario president was York University’s Mamdouh Shoukri at $464,000.
The pay seems higher out West — and that is in part due to the stated objective of some Western universities to offer executive pay that meets or exceeds what’s offered by top institutions in the rest of Canada and the United States. For example, UBC explicitly benchmarks its president’s salary against those peers. “UBC is one of the highest ranked universities in Canada, and one of the top 40 universities in the world,” says the university’s statement on senior administrator compensation. “As such, UBC seeks to retain and attract the best senior administrators it can by remaining competitive in its compensation practices with other large research-intensive universities represented by the G13 (i.e., leading research-intensive universities in Canada), and in particular the University of Toronto and the University of Alberta, and with the global market for senior administrator talent generally.”
David Naylor, president of the University of Toronto, reported $430,000 in total compensation in the most recent year: $380,000 in salary and $50,000 in benefits.
The pay packages appear to be larger out West, but that may be partly an accounting wrinkle: compensation disclosure by Alberta and BC universities is more honest and complete. In Ontario, as in BC and Alberta, executives must report base salary and other compensation. However, Alberta and BC appear to be fully (or at least more fully) expensing the cost of their senior administrators’ supplemental pension payments, whereas Ontario’s salary disclosure does not appear to include this. Pension costs are not cash payments made in 2008, but rather the estimated present cost of the pension benefits earned in 2008. Many Canadian administrators are going to get large pensions on retirement, the cost of which in the present is substantial, and should be recorded and disclosed. Out West, it is.
For example, U of A president Samarasekera’s total compensation of $627,000 exceed that of every Ontario university president. However, her base salary of $436,000 is less than the base pay given to the top three Ontario presidents. What puts her total compensation over the top is $191,000 in “other non-cash benefits.” The largest part of that is pension benefits. UBC’s compensation disclosure for president Toope breaks it down even further: $378,000 in salary, a bonus of $50,000, “other compensation” of $65,000 and pension expense of $85,000. Ontario’s Sunshine Law salary disclosure covers the first three of those items but does not appear to completely cover pension expenses.
For example, it was revealed last year that, on retirement, McMaster’s George is set to receive a golden handshake of $1.4 million, paid out at the rate of $99,999/year for 14 years. This does not appear to have ever been accounted for in McMaster’s disclosures under Ontario’s Sunshine List. (It is not clear how such a payment — which McMaster does not consider a pension — would be treated by Alberta or BC compensation disclosure requirements). Nor does it appear that Peter George’s supplemental pension benefits have been disclosed as completely as those of his Alberta and BC peers. McMaster’s Sunshine Law disclosure says that George received salary of $524,000 and “taxable benefits” of less than $10,000. It seems a safe bet that the cost of his various pension and other benefits is considerably larger than this, but Ontario’s transparency law does not require quite as much transparency as BC and Alberta.
Comparing “total compensation” at Alberta/BC universities with those in Ontario is thus not always an entirely equivalent comparison, as it may somewhat understate the compensation of Ontario administrators. (That wording is deliberately chosen: it’s not that Alberta and BC are overstating executive compensation, but rather that Ontario is understating it). The bottom line, however, is that senior administrators in Alberta and BC are well paid, and at top universities, senior executives’ salaries compete with what is offered by leading universities in Ontario. No matter how you slice it, Western presidents aren’t getting short changed. For example, in 2008, U of A president Samarasekera’s total compensation rose 6.1 per cent.
(Ontario presidents aren’t exactly suffering, either).
And what about those senior execs at the U of A who earned more than the president? The university’s annual report explains that “in the current year, certain individuals became eligible for an additional six month professional leave. Included in non-cash benefits is the equivalent of an additional six months salary for Vice-President Finance and Administration ($176,000) and Vice-President Facilities Operations ($179,000).”
The two VPs, Clark and Hickey, were not paid those benefits in 2009 — but, in another act of Western accounting honesty, the university calculated and reported the cost of their six month leaves (which they will take later, perhaps after retirement) on its 2008 statement of executive compensation.
Who is Canada’s most highly paid academic?
Surprise: Ontario’s salary leader isn’t a university president.
Who is Ontario’s highest paid university administrator? Surprise: New figures released by the government of Ontario, under the province’s decade-old “sunshine law,” suggest that the province’s most well-compensated university officer isn’t a president, the traditional top university job. That’s just one of the discoveries revealed in the Ontario’s salary disclosures, which were supposed to be released tomorrow morning, but were posted late this afternoon on a provincial government website.
RELATED CONTENT Academics compared to CEOs, politicians AND Update: Maybe David Naylor is a (relative) bargain AND Professor pay varies greatly by discipline AND McMaster goes to court to block release of president’s pay package
We gave the list a quick eyeball, and the highest paid individual we could find was not the president of Canada’s largest university, the University of Toronto—but rather Felix Chee, the President and CEO of University of Toronto Asset Management Corporation, the body that oversees the university’s endowment and pensions. Chee was paid a total of $562,000 in 2007, comprised of $549,000 in salary and $13,000 in other taxable benefits. David Naylor, the university president, received $430,000 in salary and taxable benefits.
The highest paid Ontario president appears to be McMaster’s Peter George. In 2007, he was paid just shy of $505,000 in salary in benefits. David Johnston of Waterloo earned nearly $482,000. York’s Lorna Marsden was paid $487,000 in 2007, though she retired in the middle of the year. Her successor, Mamdouh Shoukri, earned $179,000 for the approximately half-year that he was York’s president. Alastair Summerlee, president of Guelph, received nearly $447,000
The fact that Naylor is paid less than the presidents of other, smaller universities is surprising. He runs the country’s biggest university, located in what is by far the province’s most expensive city. But we don’t yet know if the disclosed “taxable benefits” portion of Naylor’s compensation—listed as $380,000 in salary and nearly $50,000 in taxable benefits—fully accounts for one important perk of the office: the presidential residence, a large Rosedale ravine mansion owned by the U of T. We can’t see how that $50,000 (which would likely also cover such things as the university’s contribution to the president’s pension) can fully account for more than a small fraction of the value of the house, which would rent for a significant five-figures-per-month sum on the open market.
The University of Toronto declined to provide us with information about the breakdown of the disclosed taxable benefits, or to explain to what degree they account for the notional rent on the presidential residence. “The University of Toronto does not discuss or disclose confidential employment matters regarding any member of faculty or staff,” said U of T spokesman Robert Steiner.
Ontario universities have been sensitive about disclosing the details of pay packages, as the Hamilton Spectator discovered when it filed this access to information request against McMaster.
The highest paid university administrators would appear to be not in Ontario, but in Alberta. According to the University of Alberta’s fiscal statements for year ended March 31, 2007, U of A president Indira Samarasekera was paid $591,000 in salary and benefits. Her Number Two, provost Carl Amrhein, earned even more: $599,000.
Included in the above total were “non-cash benefits” for Amrhein ($209,000) and Samarasekera ($177,000) that are both far larger than anything awarded to Ontario senior administrators. That may reflect higher compensation—but it may also reflect the fact that Alberta has very stringent and highly transparent disclosure laws. It may be that the Alberta figures are higher in part because Alberta law is simply more stringent in its definition of what universities have to measure and disclose under the grab-bag of “other compensation.”
