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Credit: Laine Higgins

Only three of the top 20-compensated private university presidents are women, according to a report by the Chronicle of Higher Education based on 2011 tax filings. But in the Ivy League, women are not so poorly represented.

At the sixth spot overall, Penn President Amy Gutmann was the highest-compensated female president on the list and second in the Ivy League, with a fiscal year 2012 salary of $2,091,764. The report does not account for fiscal year 2013 data, during which Gutmann’s salary rose to $2,820,540.

Esther Barazzone of Chatham University and S. Georgia Nugent of Kenyon College also made the top 20, holding the eighth and 20th spots, respectively .

Within the Ivy League, women currently lead three institutions: Harvard President Drew Gilpin Faust — a former Penn professor who also holds a 1971 masters degree and a 1975 Ph.D. from Penn — and Brown President Christina Hull Paxson join Gutmann on the list of female executives.

At the time covered by the most recently available tax data, four women led Ivy League institutions. Alongside Gutmann and Faust, Ruth Simmons — Brown’s first female president and the first black leader of an Ivy — headed Brown and Shirley Tilghman sat at the helm of Princeton.

The average compensation among female Ivy League presidents in 2012 — a still-hefty $1,304,734 — was $136,132 less than the $1,440,866 average salary of their male counterparts.

Yet, both Gutmann and Simmons — who made $1,292,110 in 2012 — were part of the million dollar club , with Princeton’s Tilghman not far behind with a total compensation package of $935,326 that year. Tilghman finished her tenure with a salary just shy of a million dollars; for the 2013 fiscal year, her final year in office, Tilghman received $979,636 in compensation.

Harvard’s Faust was the lowest-compensated female Ivy president with an $899,734 package, though Cornell President David K. Skorton — who received a package of $865,950 in fiscal year 2012 — was the overall lowest-compensated Ivy president.

Both Gutmann and Tilghman led record-breaking fundraising efforts for their respective institutions. Princeton’s Aspire campaign concluded in June of 2012 after raising $1.88 billion for the university, and Penn’s Making History campaign closed in early 2013 after taking in $4.3 billion.

Several turnovers in Ivy leadership have transpired since fiscal year 2012. Yale’s Richard Levin — then the third highest-compensated among Ivy presidents with a $2,091,764 package — stepped down in 2013 and was replaced by Peter Salovey.

Paxson — who had a starting total compensation package of $394,721 — succeeded Simmons in 2012. Her starting compensation was about 30 percent that which her predecessor made in her final year as president.

Dartmouth’s Jim Yong Kim was replaced with Philip Hanlon in 2012 when he became president of the World Bank, and Tilghman’s shoes were filled by Christopher Eisgruber in 2013. Neither Yale nor Dartmouth have had a female president to date.

Because of the lag in available tax forms, compensation packages for some members of the newest crop of Ivy League leaders is not yet available.

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