Until 1993, the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act did not apply
to tenured professors; they could legally be required to retire at age 70.
The exemption had been created because lawmakers feared that delayed retirement,
combined with tenure, would inhibit universities' ability to hire new faculty
members. When the exemption expired, this magazine reported on the financial
and intangible factors that kept professors professing past the age when
other workers retired ("Faculty in the Gray Market," September-October
1993, page 59). The article quoted then-Provost Jerry Green: "These
professors are highly motivated toward research; their work is relatively
well-funded; and they have lots of opportunities, including students to
assist them. Everything is pushing them to stay active."
So, is Harvard in the hands of senescent scholars? Evidence from the last
three years does suggest some tendency toward an aging faculty, oset by
gentle incentives to assume emeritus status.
For the three academic years ending in 1993, when the 70-year-old ceiling
was in effect, the average retirement age of members of the Faculty of Arts
and Sciences (FAS) was 69.4 years. In the three most recent academic years,
the age was unchanged. But that figure refiects the planned
retirement age of several faculty members who are several years older, and
a large class of retirements last June spurred by a one-time offer of free
health-care premiums. Moreover, a few older faculty members have not yet
indicated when they intend to give up the gown.
Will new appointments be affected? "It's too soon to tell," says
Carol Thompson, FAS associate dean for academic affairs. Even before mandatory
retirement ended, she says, not everybody waited until 70 to retire. But
in recent University affirmative-action plans, FAS cites the end of mandatory
retirement as a possible impediment to new appointments that could include
women and members of minority groups. Since 15 percent of tenured FAS professors
will reach 70 over the next five years, their retirement decisions
will have a significant effect on the faculty's future composition.
"Fewer and fewer faculty think of 70 as the normal retirement age,"
says Peter McKinney, an FAS human resources consultant who helps faculty
members approaching retirement age plan for the future. "As with many
professionals, their work is more than vocational. For many of them it's
central to their personal, even their social, lives."
Another force--call it "tenure creep"--also comes into play: the
appointment of more senior professors means that the proportion of tenured
to total FAS faculty members has increased by several percentage points
in the past decade, to a current ratio of 68:32. Those professors cost more
in salary and benefits--for those of advanced age, tens of thousands
of dollars per year more--than junior faculty members in the same disciplines.
If those people defer retirement, "It can be very expensive for the
University," says Nancy Maull, FAS administrative dean.
In response, Harvard has taken some steps to encourage retirement. FAS offers
two years of half-time status at half salary to professors who agree to
retire at the end of that period. Emeriti may maintain an office and teach
at their departments' request. FAS also offers retirement counseling and subsidizes
the cost of financial planning for faculty members 60 and older. According
to Thomas Schmitt, of Harvard's Office of Human Resources, which provides the
counseling, "We're a university, and the issue isn't about productivity
or economics. We need to renew intellect just like we need to renew the
physical structure. If something artificial limits our ability to do
that, it goes to the heart of our business."
FAS does not have a policy of offering incentive payments to professors who
agree to retire. But the Business School, heeding its own teaching, does.
In a voluntary program, business professors with 15 years of tenured service
are promised two extra years of compensation if they agree to retire between
the ages of 63 and 65; the payment declines if retirement is deferred. According
to FAS staff, the desirability of such offers, and of buyouts tendered by
Yale and the University of Chicago, is unproven.
The Business School has also instituted internal peer reviews of the performance
of each faculty member every five years--a powerful way to focus on
productivity and, possibly, retirement. Over time, the intersection of tenure
with careers of unlimited length may bring about pressure for professorial
performance reviews in other Harvard faculties.
In the meantime, the decision to retire is personal. Pellegrino University
Professor Edward O. Wilson, Ph.D. '55, has announced that he will retire
next July 1, at age 68. "This is my forty-first year of teaching,"
he explains. "It's been satisfying and successful. I'll miss it. But
now I'm looking for greater freedom for research and writing, to conduct
fieldwork, and to be more fully engaged on boards of directors for
conservation movements." As befits the father of sociobiology,
he also provides an altruistic motive for his decision: "It's right
to give a break to younger faculty members who will regard, as I did, a
professorship at Harvard as the greatest opportunity of my life."
What's it like once you're out there? "I think that people will be
delighted to retire-provided that there is enough money," says Samuel
H. Beer, Ph.D. '43, Eaton professor of the science of government emeritus,
who retired in 1982. "If you have a craft, retirement doesn't bother
you. My research field is my craft. Retirement's the best thing that
happened to me since I got tenure!"
