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4 North Carolina Public College Presidents Among Highest Paid Nationwide

The campus of East Carolina University. Former ECU Chancellor Cecil Staton was the highest-paid public university president in North Carolina in 2019. Photo courtesy ECU.

Four North Carolina university presidents were among the highest-paid public college leaders nationwide in 2019. The survey was conducted by the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Topping the 2019 list in North Carolina was former East Carolina University Chancellor Cecil Staton. Staton's total compensation, including salary and severance, was $884,277, which ranks as 34th in the nation. N.C. State Chancellor Randy Woodson was 37th, with total compensation of $874,712.

The News & Record reports other North Carolina leaders in the top 50 include Bill Roper, the outgoing interim president of the UNC system, and his predecessor Margaret Spellings. For both Staton and Spellings, severance pay was a major part of their compensation in 2019.

The nation's highest-paid public university president for the year was Mark Becker of Georgia State University in Atlanta. Most of his nearly $3 million in compensation was deferred from previous years.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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