Kansas University Chancellor Robert Hemenway’s total compensation is the fifth lowest in the Big 12, according to a new survey.

KU surpasses Nebraska, Kansas State, Missouri and Colorado for how much they pay their presidents in salary, housing, retirement pay and other perks.

But KU is behind all of the Big 12 schools in the states of Oklahoma, Iowa and Texas. The figures are gathered in an annual survey conducted by The Chronicle of Higher Education.

The Kansas Board of Regents gave Hemenway a 4-percent pay increase this year, upping his state salary by about $9,600 to $250,500.

The board capped his salary – which is a combination of state and private funds – at $319,280. According to the recent survey, his total compensation is $337,980.

“I never discuss my salary,” Hemenway said. “You can look at those numbers and draw a number of conclusions, but I’m not going to comment on them.”

Regent Dick Bond said news reports show that the state is paying its university leaders below the market rate.

And that was visible in the change in leadership at Emporia State, Bond said. Former president Kay Schallenkamp made $166,000 in 2005. Her successor, Michael Lane, makes a state salary of $190,000 with a cap of $210,000.

Lane’s entrance spurred the Regents to grant pay raises of 8.4 percent to nearly 10 percent to the leaders of regional universities such as Fort Hays State and Pittsburg State.

“When we have to go out in the marketplace, it puts a shock in the whole system,” Bond said.

Three schools in the Big 12, Texas, Texas A&M and Oklahoma, are among the growing club of schools who offer more than $500,000 to their leaders.

According to the Chronicle’s survey, top public school administrators are gaining ground with their counterparts at private schools, and the number of presidents earning more than half a million has nearly doubled to 42, up from 23 last year.

The rising salaries are one indicator that universities are operating more like corporations, with leaders assuming the roles of CEOs, said Roger Bowen, general secretary of the American Association of University Professors.

“As we look and act more and more like corporations, we subvert the primary mission of higher education which is teaching and learning,” Bowen said.

Bowen pointed to the high salaries of sports coaches, the commercialization of athletics and a top-down approach of university leaders as other facets of the new university as corporation.

Such changes aren’t for the better, Bowen maintains.

“This notion of citizenship in a university or a college is traditionally a very important one,” he said. “You lose a sense of community.”

Hemenway said he doesn’t view himself as a CEO nor does he view the university as a corporation.

“I can see why people would make that connection, but I have to admit that to me the university is not a corporation,” he said. “The university is a university – a unique complex educational organization. … I see myself as a chancellor of a university.”

Felix Moos, KU anthropology professor and former head of local and state chapters of the American Association of University Professors, said the focus on research and the demands to publish and write books and other efforts have forced faculty engagement in campus and academic life to suffer.

“In my view, the cohesion of faculty members as members of the university family has been replaced,” he said.