Students call on Harvard’s prez to accept pay cut

Dr. Ralph A. Walkling, executive director of Drexel University's LeBow College of Business Center for Corporate Governance, commented in a recent article about the call for Harvard University President Drew Faust, who earns nearly $700,000 in salary and benefits and lives in a Harvard-owned home, to share in the pain unleashed by a 30 percent drop in the school’s endowment. Walkling said that while a Faust pay cut would be an important symbolic gesture, it has to be weighed against other factors. “There is intense competition in academia for talent,” Walkling said. “Like businesses, we try to hire the best and the brightest, and that takes money. . . . Frankly, $700,000 is not an outrageous amount at all.”