highest-ranking officer within the academic administration of a university, within university systems that prefer that appellation over other variations such as chancellor or rector. The relative seniority varies between institutions. France In France, the president is the elected chair of the board and chief executive officer in universities. The president is always elected by the board among the professors of the university. The president serves a four-year term which is renewable once. The chancellor is a servant of the Ministry of Education who supervises regional educational districts. There is no hierarchical relation between the president and the chancellor. United Kingdom In Northern Ireland, the president is the chief academic and administrative officer of the university and is usually also the vice-chancellor of the university. The private London-based liberal-arts university Richmond, The American International University in London utilises the same system as in the United States but also with a ceremonial chancellor as figurehead. United States 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. 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. The president is expected to preside over all major ceremonies, including graduations and presentations of awards and honors, 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). Most other decisions are delegated to their second in command, especially operational day-to-day decisions. 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. University presidents typically ascend to the position from academic careers (i.e., after earning tenure and becoming professors and then deans), and it is highly unusual for a university to recruit a president who lacks a strong track record in academic research or university administration. The average salary for college presidents in private, non-profit institutions in 2015 was $569,932, 9 percent higher than in