John Silber - Boston University

Boston University

Silber became the seventh president of Boston University in 1971, and in 1996 was named chancellor after stepping down as president. With an annual salary that reached $800,000, Silber ranked as one of the highest paid college presidents in the country. That same year he was appointed by William Weld to serve as head of the Massachusetts Board of Education.

Under Silber, Boston University (BU) increased in size but questions about his leadership style caused splits among faculty and alumni. According to Perspectives Online, the publication of the American Historical Association, Fritz K. Ringer held the presidency of the Boston University chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP) for eight years. "Serving at a time when the BU president (Silber) was running roughshod over faculty rights, Fritz Ringer bravely and vigorously championed the principles of academic freedom."

He remained president of Boston University until 1989, when he took a leave of absence to run for governor of Massachusetts as a Democrat. He returned to BU after losing to William Weld.

Among Silber's recruits to the Boston University faculty were the author Saul Bellow and Elie Wiesel, writer and concentration camp survivor. Silber possessed special sensitivity toward Jewish people, which was heightened while he was a Fulbright scholar at the University of Bonn, West Germany. It was there he learned his father's side of the family was Jewish and that his aunt had been killed at Auschwitz. His father had never said anything about it.