Bowdoin’s 13 most highly paid employees saw increases in the total compensation during the calendar year 2010 (January 1, 2010-December 31, 2010), according to the Form 990 tax document filed by the College. As a nonprofit organization, the College is required to disclose the compensation packages of its highest-paid employees. The 2011 Form 990 is the most recent statement available.
Senior Vice President for Investments Paula Volent was the highest-paid administrator, earning a total compensation package of $781,166. This figure includes a base salary of $416,456, plus retirement and deferred compensation ($42,890), nontaxable benefits ($19,615), other reportable compensation ($2,205) and a bonus and incentive package of $300,000.
Williams College Chief Investment Officer Collette Chilton earned a comparable sum, with a total compensation package of $720,430 in the same year.
President Barry Mills is the College’s second-highest paid administrator, earning a base salary of $380, 932, the bulk of his $483,183 total compensation package. Mills’ approximate $100,000 in additional compensation is largely made up of non-taxable benefits such as his College-owned residence.
Mills’ total compensation is effectively equal to that of Wesleyan President Michael Roth, who earned $483,349, and Pomona President David Oxtoby, who earned $472,355 in the same year. The figure positions Mills as the eighth-highest compensated college president in the NESCAC, followed only by President Leo Higdon of Connecticut College ($478,709), former President Elaine Hansen of Bates ($452,564), and President Adam Falk of Williams ($417,245).
Following Volent and Mills, former Senior Vice President for Planning and Development Bill Torrey was the third-highest compensated employee at $309,333. Senior Vice President for Finance and Administration Katy Longley is the College’s fourth-highest paid employee, with a total compensation package of $300,874. Dean for Academic Affairs Cristle Collins Judd ranked fifth, taking in $261,865.
The next highest-paid employees were biology professor Patsy Dickinson, Dean of Admission and Financial Aid Scott Meiklejohn, Chief Information Officer Mitchel Davis, and Dean of Student Affairs Tim Foster.
The total compensation of employees listed on both Form 990s increased from the previous year.
“The 990 rules changed, so the forms you’re looking at actually cover a couple of pay periods,” Mills told the Orient. “So these numbers aren’t apples to apples from past years. But basically, we’ve been able to increase salaries for administrative staff around three percent.”
Mills explained that “going forward, given that it is evident that we’re going to have moderate creases in tuition and that endowment returns are going to be unpredictable, it is likely that the kind of staff increases that we have seen over the last two to three years will be the kind of staff increases that we’ll see into the future.”
Mills went on to elaborate on the correlation between staff and administrative salaries.
“The principle has been to mimic what the administrative salaries increases have been except in cases where [administrators] have been promoted or that we have found that competitively they are being paid substantially less than similar positions at peer schools.”
This was the case with Meiklejohn, whose total compensation increased by $30,222 after a comparison of salaries for deans of admissions at peer schools.
The Form 990 disclosed the pay of five professors in addition to Dickinson, who earned a combined total of $219,970 in salary and benefits. Dickinson was followed by Craig McEwen (sociology), Bruce Kohorn (biology), Allen Wells (history) and Richard Morgan (government).
Mills added that federal summer stipends could factor into the compensation listed for these professors. Under the College’s 4-5-6 policy, the College determines the salaries of its faculty members by looking at the three-year lagging average of percentage increases for faculty at the colleges ranked fourth, fifth and sixth by average salary in Bowdoin’s peer group. This allows Bowdoin to “maintain its compensation for faculty at levels competitive with those of other excellent liberal arts colleges,” according to the College’s faculty compensation policy.
In essence, the policy allows Bowdoin to maintain its faculty’s salaries at a level similar to salaries at other top liberal arts colleges.
“The College has been attempting to satisfy the 4-5-6 goal for faculty pay that we have met that in the past few years,” said Mills, “so the people who are at the top of that pay list are there because of their rank and seniority.”
-Nora Biette-Timmons and Garrett Casey contributed to this report.
Editor's note: An earlier version of this article mistakenly reported that the Form 990 reflected data from the fiscal year ending in June 2011. In fact, the form contains data from the calendar year ending in December 2010, and the article has been modified to correct this inaccuracy.