Although a large number of University faculty are approaching retirement, the current economic malaise is forcing them to postpone their plans, according to Karen Ryan, associate dean for arts, humanities and social sciences.
"I haven't heard anything" about faculty wanting to retire, Ryan said. "I attribute that to the market. It's a bad time to retire."
Out of 781 total instructional and research faculty who are full professors at the University, 382 -- roughly half -- are between the age of 56 and 85, according to the Office of Institutional Assessment.
The University policy for retirement allows for faculty with five years of state service to retire with full benefits at age 65, while faculty as young as 50 may retire if they have at least 30 years of state service. There is no mandatory retirement age.
"When the stock market was up so dramatically and everybody was rich, everybody was thinking about early retirement," Spanish Prof. David T. Gies said. "The collapse of the stock market has brought that to a screeching halt."
More faculty would consider retirement if the economy were better, Gies said.
Ryan also said she suspected the current University-wide hiring freeze is a main reason for faculty delaying retirement. Professors may be wary of leaving a position that could not be replaced for a year or more, she said.
"Departments could be telling a possible retiring faculty member that 'if you retire now, we're going to be in a pickle,'" she said. A professor doesn't "want to put [his or her] department at a disadvantage."
In order to offer a possible solution for faculty who wish to retire but feel unable to do so, Provost Gene Block and other administrators now are drafting an early retirement plan to send to the state for approval.
Vice President for Finance Yoke San Reynolds, who is working with Block on the package, said an early retirement plan aims to encourage faculty to leave voluntarily, which would reduce salary expenses and prevent faculty layoffs. Salary expenses account for 65 percent of University operating expenses, Reynolds said.
"An early retirement program works only as a nudge for people already thinking about retirement," she said.
University President John T. Casteen III said he was optimistic that the state would accept an early retirement plan.
"My impression from talks in Richmond is that historically Virginia has seen early retirement as an employee benefit rather than as a managerial tool that can help contain costs, and that the central agencies are beginning to see the light now," Casteen said. "I am not finding resistance to the kinds of incentive programs that we need to offer."
However, a high number of middle-aged tenured faculty is no cause for alarm, Ryan said.
"Many people don't even think about retiring until they're 65 or much older," Ryan added. "Many people are in a peak at their 60s or 70s."
Gies also cautioned that a gray-haired faculty does not mean that students should worry about their professors becoming senile -- that many instructors only improve the longer they teach.
"Unlike pipe-fitters or textile workers, generally professors get better with age," he said. "Because what they might lose in energy, they gain in depth."
Gies added, however, that an older constituency of faculty has its drawbacks.
"That's one side of the coin. The other side is, of course, that when university budgets are retrenching so dramatically, what do you do with young people?" he said. "If you combine people not retiring with diminished resources, you have a problem."
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