The Vice Chancellor Isn’t Paid Enough

In 2018, Prof Guilford discussed his salary with Salient’s then editor. The Vice Chancellor (VC) said:

“yeah, it’s not so much about wanting to get paid that much, that’s the going rate for people with my level of responsibility. The salary is paying for the accountability that we have, also, from a business sense, the Chief Exec earns that salary, many times over. Generally for professionals you’re looking to earn three times your salary. All of the Vice Chancellors I know in NZ–none of them are driven by their salary, that’s just what you get paid when you are at that level.”

He was then asked if he would “take a pay cut to give the university more money.”  He replied, “I wouldn’t…because it’s a bad look–it would look like I was worth less compared to other people in similar roles.”

But then on 6 May, 2020, in an unprecedented year, Chancellor Neil Paviour-Smith confirmed that Grant Guilford had taken a 20% pay cut for the remainder of the year, also announcing at the same time that Council members unanimously agreed to a voluntary pay reduction. The money was donated to staff and student hardship funds. A little bit of wealth redistribution.

Grant Guilford has been paid less than VC’s at our competitor education providers according to Chief Executive Remuneration Disclosure data available via publicservice.govt.nz. VC remuneration at University of Auckland was $768k, the University of Otago rate was $656k, and VUW’s was $599k in the same 2019-2020 period. In an interview with Salient this week, Neil Paviour-Smith said the VC’s salary might not be appealing enough for international candidates. So the question of salary is important for keeping up with the market and attracting the best possible candidates.

This VC job is a big one. Universities are public sector organisations with a public function but they also happen to be very big businesses. VUW is the second-largest employer, the largest accommodation provider, and the third-largest health provider. It’s got over a billion dollars in property. You need a VC who has the business acumen and experience to keep it all afloat, which comes at a high price.

It seems to me that the functions of a university are at odds with the business model they operate within. I’d say the fundamental functions of a University are to carry out research and educate students. The university’s motto translates to “wisdom is more valuable than gold.” Sometimes it feels like the University prioritises commercial interest at the expense of academics and students alike. 

A lot of the University’s students are young people who face significant financial and personal hardship in order to be here. Rent, food, student loans, mental health issues, relocation… it goes on. So we feel like we’re in constant struggle, and then the person who makes the decisions that affect our education makes more in a month than some of us live on in an entire year. So while it’s really nice that Grant Guilford owns a couple blocks of land he can plant with native trees to ~unwind~, it makes for an incredibly unrelatable leader.

VCs were once students just like us (minus the student debt HAHA) and maybe in 30 years some of us will be earning half a mil (adjusted for inflation) a year. The VC isn’t paid enough according to market rates. This could even be a case of don’t hate the player, hate the game. But at the very least, we are allowed to critique leadership decisions, get mad, and reflect on how they impact our education. I’d really like to see someone who is not a white man get that 6-figure paycheck.