大學校長該拿天價薪水嗎

Gregory Fenves recently got a big promotion, from provost to president of the University of Texas at Austin. A raise came with it. Instead of his current base of about $425,000, he was offered $1 million.

格雷戈裏·範韋斯(Gregory Fenves)最近晉升要職，從德州大學奧斯汀分校(University of Texas at Austin)教務長升任校長。此次升職是包含加薪的。他目前的基礎薪俸約爲42.5萬美元（約合263萬元人民幣），校方開出100萬美元。

And he rejected it — as too much.

但他拒絕了——理由是太高。

“With many issues and concerns about administrative costs, affordability and tuition, such a salary will affect the ability of the president to work with the Texas Legislature,” Fenves wrote to a university official, in an email obtained by The Austin American-Statesman and published last week.

“鑑於對行政支出、負擔能力、學費等諸多問題的擔憂與考量，這樣的薪俸將影響校長與德州議會(Texas Legislature)的合作，”範韋斯在一封致某大學官員的電子郵件中寫道，該信由《奧斯汀美國政治家》(The Austin American-Statesman)獲得，並於上週刊發。

He suggested, and agreed to, $750,000.

最終他提議並接受了75萬美元。

That’s hardly chump change. But in the context of the shockingly lucrative deals that have become almost commonplace among college presidents, the sum — or, more precisely, the sentiment behind it — is worthy of note and praise.

這當然不算是一筆小數目。但相比在大學校長中已經司空見慣的天價合約，它——或者更準確的說，它所透露的觀念——是值得留意和稱讚的。

Another of those deals came to light late Tuesday night, when The Wall Street Journal reported that Yale University had paid its former president, Richard Levin, an “additional retirement benefit” of $8.5 million after he retired from his post in 2013. The Journal characterized this as an “unprecedented lump-sum payment” for a college president and noted that Levin’s annual compensation package during his final years at Yale was already over $1 million.

週二深夜，《華爾街日報》(The Wall Street Journal)曝光了另一份類似的合約，2013年理查德·萊文(Richard Levin)卸任後，耶魯大學(Yale University)向這位校長支付了一筆850萬美元的“額外退休金”。《日報》形容這筆一次總付的退休金在大學校長中是“前所未有的”，並指出萊文在執掌耶魯的最後幾年裏，年薪已經在100萬美元以上。

All in all, few presidents give adequate thought to the symbolism and dissonance of extraordinarily generous salaries, which are in sync with this era of lavish executive pay and glaring income inequality but out of line with the ostensible mission of academia.

總的來說，很少有大學校長充分考慮到，這些令人咋舌的高薪有怎樣的象徵意義，看上去會有多麼刺眼，它們和這個時代對企業高管的慷慨以及觸目驚心的貧富差距是相符的，但卻與學術界聲言的使命相去甚遠。

Ideally, higher education is dedicated to values different from those that govern Wall Street and corporate America. It supposedly calls students to more soulful concerns, even to sacrifice.

按理說，高等教育的價值觀應該有別於華爾街和美國企業界。它本應將學子引向更高尚的追求，甚至是犧牲。

But that message is muddled when some of the people who run colleges wallow in payments and perks that would once have been considered vulgar.

然而，當一些大學的管理者享受着曾被斥爲鄙俗的高薪和待遇時，學生們看在眼裏會感到困惑。

For E. Gordon Gee’s final year as the president of Ohio State University, which he left in 2013, he got a package of more than $6 million, as was widely reported. It was a one-time bonanza, including deferred payments and severance, but he’d earned roughly $2 million annually over the previous years.

俄亥俄州立大學(Ohio State University)校長E·戈登·吉(E. Gordon Gee)於2013年卸任，任內最後一年他的薪俸超過了600萬美元，當時媒體廣爲報道。那是一次性支付的獎酬，包括了延期付款和遣散費，但此前幾年裏，他的年薪已經在200萬美元上下。

The Chronicle of Higher Education analyzed salary information for private colleges from 2012, the most recent year available, and found that Shirley Ann Jackson, the president of Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, received a package worth over $7 million.

《高等教育紀事報》(The Chronicle of Higher Education)分析了2012年私立大學的薪俸信息，也就是現有數據所及的最近一年，他們發現倫斯勒理工學院(Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute)院長雪利·安·傑克遜(Shirley Ann Jackson)拿到了超過700萬美元的薪俸。

John L. Lahey of Quinnipiac University: about $3.75 million. Lee Bollinger of Columbia University: almost $3.4 million.

昆尼皮亞克大學(Quinnipiac University)的約翰·L·雷希(John L. Lahey)：約375萬美元。哥倫比亞大學(Columbia University)的李·鮑林傑(Lee Bollinger)：將近340萬美元。

Fenves’s salary as the president of the University of Texas puts him well behind that of his counterpart at Texas A & M University, who has an annual base of $1 million plus $400,000 in additional compensation, according to The American-Statesman.

據《美國政治家》的報道，範韋斯作爲德州大學校長的工資要比德州農工大學(Texas A&M University)校長低很多，後者的基礎年薪是100萬美元，外加40萬美元的額外報酬。

Each profligate compensation package breeds more like it, as schools’ trustees convince themselves that they must keep pace in order to recruit, retain and receive the precious fairy dust of the heaviest hitters.

每出現一個漫天高價的薪酬包，都會促使更多的學校跟進。校董們認定，要想招募、挽留最搶手人才，並領受其恩澤，他們必須跟上時代的步伐。

They reason that “this is a winner-take-all society and that people with extremely high levels of talent are richly rewarded,” said Richard Vedder, the director of the Center for College Affordability and Productivity.

他們的理由是，“這是個成王敗寇的社會，具備最頂尖才能的人要得到豐厚的回報，”大學學費與績效中心(Center for College Affordability and Productivity)主任理查德·韋德(Richard Vedder)說。

“But I think that things are getting out of hand, especially given the tax-exempt nature of universities,” he told me. “They’re in privileged positions, and they were given these privileged positions not to enrich themselves but to serve society. These presidents are expected to live quite nicely but not exorbitantly and not extravagantly.”

“但我認爲現在有些失控了，尤其是考慮到大學的免稅待遇，”他對我說。“他們是享受着特權的，而之所以給他們特權，不是爲了讓他們逐利，是要他們服務社會。這些校長理應過上優越的生活，但不能這麼窮奢極欲。”

Their extravagance strikes an especially discordant note in light of the challenges confronting higher education today, and it undercuts their moral authority.

在高等教育面臨嚴峻挑戰的今天，他們的奢侈無度尤顯不協調，並且有損他們的道德威嚴。

How do you defend the transfer of teaching responsibilities to low-paid, part-time adjuncts when the president is sitting so pretty? How do you cut administrative costs, which indeed need cutting? How do you explain steep tuition increases, mammoth student debt and the failure to admit more children from poor families?

一個錦衣玉食的校長，該如何解釋將教學責任轉給低薪的兼職教授的舉措？如何下手削減行政開支——儘管的確有削減的必要？你如何解釋學費的暴漲，鉅額學生債，無法接收更多窮人家的孩子？

How do you summon students back to the liberal arts and away from mercenary priorities?

你如何呼籲學生們放棄唯利是圖的專業方向，重拾對文科的興趣？

The high salaries are frequently defended on the grounds that a university president’s job is all consuming. But if it is, how do so many of them find time to serve, for hundreds of thousands of extra dollars, on corporate boards? Rensselaer’s Jackson was at one point on five boards simultaneously.

大學校長的工作極爲繁重，這也是給他們開出高薪的一個常見理由。但如果真的如此，爲什麼還有那麼多校長進入企業董事會，額外再賺上幾十萬美元？倫斯勒的傑克遜一度身兼五家企業的董事。

The high salaries are also defended in terms of the fund-raising that certain presidents reputedly excel at, covering their compensation many times over. But do they deserve sole credit for those donations? And at nonprofit institutions, should money be the main yardstick and currency? Shouldn’t ethics compete with economics, as they sometimes do when a school invests its endowment?

高薪的另一個理由是某些校長被認爲格外擅長籌款，比起他們爲學校籌措到的資金，他們的薪水只是個零頭。但是爭取到那些捐款的功勞，應該記在他們一個人頭上嗎？在一個非營利機構，金錢應該成爲主要衡量標準和通貨嗎？難道不應該將倫理置於和經濟同等的地位來考慮？要知道有時候學校在決定如何用捐贈基金投資時，就會這樣考慮。

The lofty pay of college presidents is part of higher education’s increasingly corporate bent, of the blurred lines between the campus and the marketplace.

高等教育越來越有企業的作派，校園和市場的界線漸漸模糊，校長的高薪就是其中一個表現。

And like the private enrichment of many political candidates who speak of “public service,” it’s not just a mirror of our pervasive money culture. It’s a green light for it, from precincts of principle where a flashing yellow would be more appropriate.

和許多一邊說着“公共服務”一邊攬聚私人財富的政治候選人一樣，它不只是四處蔓延的金錢文化的映照。它是在給這種文化開綠燈，而在這個固守志節的界域中，理應不斷閃動的是一盞黃燈。