VC pay: attracting top performers or the wrong sort of person entirely

The Association of Australian University Professors (bolshie in a dignified way) is surveying members on what should be the salary range for vice chancellors

Perhaps the association suggests, million-dollar pay is the way to attract the top-performers needed to administer unis. Unless, the association offers, because greed is a “moral weakness” paying buckets of money attracts the wrong people.

That the question merits asking at all is a very Australian issue. Back in 2013 Timothy Devinney and Graham Dowling produced a paper on US, UK and Aus VC pay. They discovered the locals made a motza more than their Anglosphere colleagues, but found “no reason to believe that Australian universities are any more difficult to run than major US universities or those in the UK or that the individuals chosen to run the Australian universities possess any special skills that demand greater compensation,” (CMM August 12 2013).