Chronicle of Higher Education
From the issue dated November 19, 2004
PRESIDENTIAL PROFILE
'Bury Me Under the Oak Tree'
By ERIN STROUT
As the president of New College of California, in San Francisco,
Martin J. Hamilton is not opposed to a raise. Few could blame him:
Living in one of the most expensive areas in the nation, he has a base
salary of $48,000.
But for Mr. Hamilton, a fixture at New College almost since its
founding 33 years ago, working at New College has never been about the
money.
"The reason I stay is a combination of love and stubbornness," he
says. "It is my life. They'll probably bury me under the oak tree."
The college was started in 1971 by Jack Leary, who had resigned as
president of Gonzaga University. Mr. Leary wanted to create a model of
undergraduate education with the study of humanities at its core, and
to form an experimental institution that was more about mentoring
students than lecturing to them.
He envisioned a utopian place where people would focus on social
activism. It is a place, says the college's mission statement, where
"the longings of the spirit are more powerful than the social forces
that have sought to invalidate them."
The accredited college occupies four buildings on Valencia and Fell
Streets in the city's Mission district, a neighborhood known for its
vibrant mix of immigrants and bohemians. Students can pursue such
majors as activism, poetics, women's spirituality, or jazz studies.
The institution also offers professional and graduate degrees, such as
public-interest law, psychology, or teacher education.
Endowment Lacking
Mr. Hamilton, 55, took over as president about two years ago after
serving the institution in various roles since the age of 26. To the
best of his recollection, he earned a starting salary of $11,000 as
the assistant to the dean of the college.
Before taking on the presidency, Mr. Hamilton was a vice president
focused on the college's ailing finances. The institution was never
organized in a conventional way, avoiding a strict administrative
hierarchy. It ignored fund raising and today, as a result, it has no
endowment and tenuous connections with its relatively young and small
donor base.
During his presidency, Mr. Hamilton hopes to change all that, and
maybe earn himself and the rest of the faculty members a raise in the
process. Since its inception, the college's pay policies ensure that
the highest-paid employee can not earn more than twice the amount of
the lowest paid, and when the institution was struggling in the late
1970s, everybody earned $1,000 per month.
It's that kind of communal spirit that long-time New College devotees
don't want to lose, even now in a more fiscally sound era of growing
enrollment. Mildred M. Henry, former New College president and a
current faculty member, remembers a time when faculty members shared
their salaries with each other to get by.
"We don't spend a lot on extra things," she says. "The way we band
together out of a sense of community is sacred to us."
It's something that's passed on to new generations of students as
well. Robert K. Brown, special assistant to the president, says Mr.
Hamilton sets an example that keeps the original character of the
institution alive, and recently helped one student pay for a class.
"We were in my office talking and there was a student outside whose
financial aid hadn't come in yet," Mr. Brown says. "We're not supposed
to allow them to enroll until that loan money comes in, but instead of
bending the rules, Martin gave the student $75 out of his own pocket,
which he really cannot afford to do."
Mr. Hamilton likens his role to that of a small-town mayor. He is
involved in everything, including budget decisions and computer
problems. The administration's open-door policy means that students
can show up at the president's office needing help with even the
smallest of problems, such as difficulty registering for a class or
finding housing.
He says he wouldn't trade it for a high-paying job and that he wants
to continue his presidential tenure for at least 10 years -- with or
without a raise.
"I think that if we change our salary structure, it will need to be
controlled not only by the marketplace, but by our values," he says.
"The amount of money the highest paid people make at other
institutions is not that interesting to me. Nobody at New College is
going to make a lot of money, but we have a real spirit within the
institution that you won't find anywhere else."
http://chronicle.com
Section: Executive Compensation
Volume 51, Issue 13, Page B13
