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July 14, 2010
A REALLY unfortunate acronym at Stanford - R.I.P.
Many workers yearn for retirement -- the goodbye parties, the golf course, maybe even a gold watch. But Stanford University has the opposite problem: Nobody wants to leave.Hoping to create more space for young scholars, Stanford has revamped its generous "Retirement Incentive Program" -- for the second time in a decade -- to nudge more old-timers toward the door.
"Our senior faculty are wonderful. I love them all," Provost John Etchemendy said at a recent meeting of the Academic Senate, publicizing the plan. "But we're getting fewer people into the faculty, and that's because people are staying longer," he said. "The faculty is aging."
Hired in large numbers during a 1960s and '70s higher education boom, Sputnik and civil rights-era professors now represent the majority of Stanford faculty. In 2008, the most recent year for which data is available, about 53 percent were older than 50, up from 43 percent in 1993. The under-45 crowd had fallen from 42 to 33 percent.
And like a seat on the Supreme Court and papal office, university tenure is lifelong. With the brightest students, best libraries and labs, and lighter teaching loads than at most state schools, professors at elite research universities have little reason to retire.
"I love Stanford. Over the years, it's gotten better and better,'' said Stanford English professor John Felstiner, 74, who swims, hikes and just completed a new book, "Can Poetry Save The Earth?" "It's as good as it gets.''
I'm sure it is. Nothing like being a tenured professor at a university with a huge endowment who got there in 1965, when it was possible to buy a house in Palo Alto.In a lovely corner office stacked to the ceiling with dog-eared books -- poetry, British literature, translations and Jewish studies -- Felstiner turns melancholy when considering his departure.
"I love my department. I like being around people I admire and have known a long time.
Now there's a funny point - if there is a sudden burst of retirements there are copy-cats - because the community changes. I love the students, and the scores of people who come here," said Felstiner, who arrived on campus in 1965, when Lyndon Johnson was president. "It feels good to be connected. It is good to have a letterhead.""The minute you retire, it's as if you're invisible.''
It's all about how he feels. Self-esteem over all.In 1994, because of changes in federal law, universities were forced to abolish mandatory retirement. They can only use certain age-based retirement incentives, such as part-time work for full-time pay.
As opposed to adjuncts - who work for MUCH less per course than the RIP program will pay. Part time pay for a senior professor is a per-course fraction of his salary. Adjunct rates are a FRACTION of even the per-course rate for first year assistant professors.Meanwhile, health has improved and lives have grown longer. And academia -- a life of the mind -- is sustainable in a way that physical toil is not.
Have there been any systematic studies of the teaching ability of the elderly? Why should we believe they are keeping up in the classroom if we haven't asked?"It's not like working in a factory on an assembly line, where, at a certain point, you're glad to get out of a job," Etchemendy said. "Universities provide a unique guarantee of lifetime employment."
But why?. . .
Law professor Hank Greely, 58, nationally renowned for his work on the legal, ethical and social issues of biomedical technologies, agreed: "The age of the overall American population has right-shifted. The whole country is older."
You know something that HASN'T right-shifted? The age of the student population at these institutions. Elite colleges and universities still teach 18-22 year olds, and 22-whenver-they-finish grad students. Interesting difference, hunh?
Spell out the acronym for the program - R.I.P.
Posted by CrankyProfessor at July 14, 2010 4:59 PM