Mandatory retirement?

I became a tenured associate professor at the age of 38. After that point, I couldn’t be fired except for cause, and there was no mandatory retirement age. Of course, tenure doesn’t guarantee a salary, and salary reduction is one approach to motivating retirement, although the AAUP takes a dim view of the practice.

Nevertheless, I decided to go on phased retirement five years ago. I accepted a reduction in salary (and reduced work expectations) and signed paperwork stating that I would resign my tenured appointment as of July 2024, at the age of 69.

Why not keep working and keep drawing a salary? Well, for one thing, I’ve never liked writing grant proposals, and grant support is a core expectation of the basic science faculty business model at medical schools. I played the game for over 30 years and wasn’t getting better at it. The expectation of grant funding (with salary recovery) disappeared when phased retirement started; I voluntarily accepted a 30% salary reduction, which is the same as 30% extramural salary recovery on the university spreadsheet.

There were other reasons, including personal ones, for embracing retirement. And being able to set a five-year glide path, rather than just taking a buy-out and quitting cold turkey allowed me to decelerate after decades on the research treadmill. 

Should retirement be mandatory for all university faculty? I don’t think so. But if universities are afraid of too much geriatric dead wood, they could do a better job of dignifying and honoring the retirement decision.

 

https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/09/02/magazine/mandatory-retirement-age-in-america/