Chancellor (education)
In many countries, the administrative and educational head of the university is known as the president, principal or rector.
Macquarie University in Sydney is a noteworthy anomaly as it once had the unique position of Emeritus Deputy Chancellor, a post created for John Lincoln upon his retirement from his long-held post of deputy chancellor in 2000.
The position was not merely an honorary title, as it also retained for Lincoln a place in the University Council until his death in 2011.
Canadian universities have a titular chancellor similar to those in England and Wales, with day-to-day operations typically handled by a principal.
As the rector of the university (Finnish: rehtori, Swedish: rektor) remains the de facto administrative leader and chief executive official, the role of the chancellor is more of a social, political and even historical nature.
Historically the chancellor's duty was to function as the official representative of the monarch in the autonomous university.
However, still today the chancellor is not an administrator who is entirely subordinate to the president but an office holder who oversees a host of responsibilities assigned to him or her directly by higher education law.
However, the day-to-day operations of the universities are under the directorship of a president (a provost in the case of Trinity College Dublin).
The chancellor is primarily responsible for attending the convocation programmes and accepting the resignation and appointment letter of a new vice-chancellor.
The University of Santo Tomas is governed mainly by its rector magnificus in overseeing its academic, financial and other affairs.
In the United States, heads of colleges and universities are typically called "president."
A multi-campus university system may be headed by a chancellor who serves as systemwide chief, with presidents governing individual institutions.
This is the case in Arkansas, California, North Carolina, Illinois, Massachusetts, Missouri, and Wisconsin.
The College of William & Mary uses the term "chancellor" in the British sense, as a figurehead leader, but the actual executive of the school is the "president", not a "vice-chancellor."
In some universities, such as Massachusetts Institute of Technology, the chancellor is a high-ranking officer below the president and equal to or below the provost, who might have vice-chancellors reporting to her or him.
In France, the president is the elected chair of the board and chief executive officer in universities.
[8][9][10] Historically, the title of president was used for the ceremonial heads of constituent institutions of the University of Wales, thus the politician Neil Kinnock was President of Cardiff University from 1998 until succeeded in 2009 by the Nobel prize winner Sir Martin Evans.
[12] In most stand-alone universities and colleges in the United States, the chief executive officer is called the president, while the second-most senior officer is called the provost, vice president of academic affairs, dean of faculties, or some other similar title.
[13] In the United States, the executive and ceremonial roles are not split, which means that a university president assumes an enormous burden in terms of the sheer breadth of their duties and responsibilities.
[14] The president is expected to preside over all major ceremonies, including graduations and presentations of awards and honors,[15] while also reporting to the board of trustees and personally handling certain high-level executive functions: external relations (especially public relations and fundraising) and long-range planning and strategy (especially the creation and termination of university degrees, programs, and policies).
[13] The provost often has the final say on resource allocation decisions, difficult tenure decisions, whether to initiate recruiting of star faculty from other institutions, and whether to initiate defensive measures against such recruiting of the institution's own star faculty.
[16][17] The average salary for college presidents in private, non-profit institutions in 2015 was $569,932, 9 percent higher than in 2014.
[18] There are two well-known problems with the American tradition of concentrating so much power and responsibility in a single person.
First, American universities are notoriously bad at training faculty members and administrators to assume such a heavy burden.
[14][19] Second, university presidents are increasingly vulnerable to occupational burnout and either return to the faculty or flee academia for nonprofits or consulting.
