Faculty members have many stages in their academic careers and retirement is a shift that can often leave them feeling detached. Our guests this month, Dr. Amy Strage and Dr. Joan Merdinger, from San Jose State University discuss how to best help faculty prepare for and transition into this stage of their lives. They offer important resources and practical advice in the area of faculty development and retirement.
Andrew Hibel, HigherEdJobs: Please tell us how your careers developed.
Dr. Amy Strage; Assistant Vice President for Faculty Development/Director Center for Faculty Development: After completing my Ph.D. program in developmental psychology, I began my academic career as an assistant professor in San Jose State University’s College of Education. I had the opportunity to chair the tenure and promotion committees at all three levels (department, college, and all-university). As I did this, I became fascinated with the variety of paths faculty took as they made their way up the academic ladder. I began to see patterns in what people found as relatively easy to navigate and what they found challenging at various points in their careers. I saw ways to apply what I knew from my own research about determinants of motivation, persistence, and resilience to supporting colleagues as they charted their course. Thanks to two very generous awards from the American Council on Education/Sloan Foundation, I was able to collaborate with Dr. Joan Merdinger in designing programs to support faculty throughout the arc of their careers
Dr. Joan Merdinger, former Assistant Vice President for Faculty Affairs and Emerita Faculty: I’ve always been interested in life span development. I started my career as a professional social worker in a hospital working with older patients in a medical unit, and younger patients in a psychiatric unit. Doctoral studies gave me the skills to ask and answer questions about personal and professional development. When I moved into academic administration in the SJSU Office of Faculty Affairs, I worked closely with our SJSU Center for Faculty Development, co-leading workshops with Amy on retention, tenure, and promotion. As the campus Co-PI for the ACE/Sloan Faculty Career Flexibility award, I worked with Amy to develop initiatives for all stages of the academic career life cycle, particularly for mid-career and late-career stages. In 2012, Amy and I co-authored the ACE/Sloan Faculty Transitions application for our campus, an award that focused on best practices for the transition of faculty from full-time employment to full retirement. The award gave me the opportunity to retire from the university while collaborating with Amy, creating new retirement-focused projects designed to benefit faculty at all stages of their careers. After a 35 year academic career as a tenured faculty member first at Rhode Island College and then at San Jose State University, I am now a member of the SJSU Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association (ERFA), and I recently served as president of that organization. Together, and in our respective positions, Amy and I have created new links between the University and the ERFA that have benefitted both our employed and retired faculty.
Hibel: A recent Women in Higher Education article states, “Retirement has changed since the days when professors got a gold watch and a handshake at 65, whether or not they wanted it. Since 1994 it has been illegal to force tenured faculty to retire, but colleges haven’t yet adjusted to the implications. Like recruitment and retention, retirement needs to be treated as a strategic issue.” From the perspective of the institution, why is it critical to treat the topic of faculty retirement strategically?
Strage/Merdinger: Ever since 1994, it’s been pretty much up to faculty members themselves to decide when they want to retire. In many cases, it’s also pretty much up to faculty whether they want to continue to be engaged with their campus – teaching part-time, continuing with their research, mentoring junior colleagues and students, or providing service to the university in many capacities. As a result, it has become much more challenging for institutions to predict when faculty will opt to leave, and what the needs of the campus will be. It’s also quite delicate to work with faculty who are not as effective as they once were, to help them recognize that it may be time for them to bring their careers to a close, and to help them make a “graceful exit.”
Hibel: For many faculty, retirement can be filled with mixed emotions. Why is important for faculty to also think strategically when considering transitioning into retirement not only from a financial side but from an emotional side?
Strage/Merdinger: There is still much that we don’t know, but the research on faculty transitions to retirement is fairly clear on a couple of points. Several researchers have focused on what happens when faculty divest themselves of their faculty roles. Most people seem to adjust fairly well within six months or a year, but a sizable number experience what has been termed “identity shock” especially if they have not planned for how they will use their time once they retire. Some report feeling what has been termed “detached,” missing the social and intellectual stimulation of interactions with their colleagues and their students. Faculty who take time to plan and prepare seem to have the easiest time with the transition. It’s interesting to note the increasing popularity of phased retirement programs, which allow faculty to step down gradually, and take stock and make adjustments as the process evolves.
Hibel: In 2012, your institution received a grant for being one of the top universities supporting faculty transitions into retirement. What are some of the reasons that San Jose State University earned this honor?
Strage/Merdinger: One of the factors was that we recognized the complexity of the transition – that faculty needed support sorting through the financial landscape but also the social and emotional components of the decisions they were trying to make. A second factor may have been that the approach we take in all of our faculty development programs is to encourage people to be very intentional as they approach taking the reins of their careers. One of our favorite quotes comes from the Roman philosopher, Seneca, who wrote “If one does not know what port one is sailing for, no wind is favorable.” A third factor may have been that we recognize the range of profiles of faculty careers – placing different emphasis in teaching, scholarship, and professional and administrative service of various kinds, and so in order to be truly valuable, support for faculty must be tailored to their particular needs – as we like to say, “like snowflakes, no two faculty members are exactly alike.” And lastly, our approach is also collaborative and interdisciplinary – in developing our programs we draw together the ideas and efforts of people from our Center for Faculty Development, our Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association, our Faculty Affairs and our HR department, as well as faculty with expertise in various social sciences and professional fields.
Hibel: What advice would you give to other institutions that may be enhancing or creating faculty development programs in terms of programs for faculty nearing retirement and programs or opportunities for emeritus faculty?
Strage/Merdinger: We’ve found that the transition into retirement is experienced differently by each faculty member. Some are very open about their plans to retire while others feel that any disclosure about a planned retirement will immediately marginalize them in their departments. We recommend that as much material as possible should be available on college and university websites so that every faculty member has equal access to retirement planning information. All members of the faculty should be invited to retirement planning workshops, regardless of age. We’ve found that many new, tenure-track faculty are interested in planning for their retirement, so all should be encouraged to attend retirement-focused events. Including a module on the retirement plan that your academic institution uses, as well as supplemental plans, should be part of new faculty orientation. If retirement is always considered as one of the stages in the career, workshops that focus on goals related to career and career satisfaction would also assume that planning for retirement is an equally valid goal. We offer mid-career faculty professional renewal retreats that help faculty to plan for their future within a five year time horizon, and we ask them to make commitments for specific outcomes in teaching, scholarship, and service. We find that the topic of retirement planning often emerges as mid-career faculty members reflect on the stages in their own careers. Faculty development should also include consultation with departments, colleges, and universities around planning events that mark the end of a faculty member’s career such as “last lecture” events and symposia that honor the body of work of a retiring faculty member. Including Emeritus(ae) faculty in retirement-focused workshops allows for faculty in the pre-retirement stage to take advantage of the experience and wisdom of their more senior and retired colleagues. Including retired faculty in the life of the academy by continuing their e-mail accounts, providing parking, offering them office and laboratory space – all these benefits demonstrate to retired faculty members that they are valued beyond their years of active employment.
Hibel: What advice do you give to emeritus faculty for ways to “keep their identity” after they stop teaching?
Strage/Merdinger: First of all, it would be important to know which roles faculty saw as central to their identity before they retired. Assuming that you are asking about ways to preserve their identities as members of an academic community, we’d suggest the following:
- Stay intellectually engaged. As full-time faculty members, their professional lives were focused on their disciplines, their teaching, their research, and their service. If teaching was a primary interest, can they volunteer to return to their college/university to teach, or can they take on teaching responsibilities through organizations such as Osher Lifelong Learning Institutes (OLLI) or centers for adult education. What research areas would they be interested in pursuing that they weren’t able to complete or initiate while working full-time? What service opportunities are they interested in pursuing?
- Keep in touch with your college/university. Be sure to read your college/university e-mails that tell you about upcoming events and be sure to attend those that interest you.
- Join a retired faculty organization. If such an organization doesn’t exist, would you be interested in starting such an organization? Being part of, or creating such an organization, connects you in a meaningful way with your college/university and with current and retired faculty.
Hibel: You’ve co-authored many papers on faculty development. What are some of the key issues that you have learned through you research that faculty members want and need as they transition into their post-career stages?
Strage/Merdinger: What we’ve learned from the retired faculty we have interviewed is quite consistent with what others have written about in the literature:
- Faculty need to know that they can afford to retire. We also know that retirement isn’t just about finances and being able to afford as many as 30 or more years without active employment, however, being assured that their retirement benefits are sufficient to take care of their needs is essential in being able to do successful planning.
- We know that attending to health and fitness is important for successful aging; these also influence a positive attitude toward retirement.
- Many colleges and universities have phased retirement programs, allowing faculty to ease into a part-time schedule before they end their active work life. Being able to choose when to retire is a predictor of better adjustment in retirement than is forced retirement, so take advantage of programs that lighten the workload while allowing time to transition to a new chapter in your life.
- Faculty need to know that they will experience a range of emotions about leaving their college or university while they transition into full time retirement. These feeling are a normal part of the transition.
- Have a plan for how you will be spending your time in retirement. A faculty member shared with us, “My father told me to be sure to retire to something, rather than away from something.”
- Although it may be tempting to take on new and interesting responsibilities at the point of retirement, it’s best not to take on too much too quickly. Pace yourself.
Hibel: What other associations or resources do you suggest that institutions and faculty members be aware of in order to be educated in the area of faculty retirement?
Strage/Merdinger: We would like to recommend a book that the American Council on Education (ACE) sponsored as part of the ACE/Sloan Faculty Transitions award; the book was published in 2014. Each of the 15 award winning campuses provided a chapter; the book includes the most current information about best practices for retirement planning for faculty. The book is titled, Faculty Retirement: Best Practices for Navigating the Transition. ACE has been a leader in identifying the critical issue of retirement transitions for institutions as well as for individual faculty.
We also recommend joining the Association for Retired Organizations in Higher Education (AROHE), a network that was created by academic retiree organizations across the country and in Canada. AROHE provides mentors and support for newly forming faculty retiree organizations
We suggest that you take a look at the SJSU ERFA (Emeritus and Retired Faculty Association) website to see an active faculty retiree organization that is an important part of our University.
Lastly, we invite readers to peruse our SJSU Center for Faculty Development website, where we have posted recent interviews with retired faculty from our campus who share their wisdom about their own retirement transitions.
Hibel: What words of wisdom would you give to a higher education professional considering working the area of faculty development?
Strage: I’d offer three ideas here: First, I think of people working in faculty development as “leading from the middle” (a phrase I’ve borrowed from Adriana Kezar, a faculty member at the University of Southern California). By that, I mean that faculty development professionals are uniquely positioned to take stock of the big picture (issues pertaining to the future of higher education, demographics trends in higher education, concerns and priorities of campus leadership) and to listen closely to faculty, to understand what they want and need. So they need to be able to work effectively at 30,000 feet and at ground level. Second, I would advise someone interested in working in the area of faculty development to be open to new ideas, but also cautious about fads – whether it’s the latest technology breakthrough or pedagogical innovation. And third, be prepared for the range of challenges you will be asked to address. Most of the faculty you will have the opportunity to work with will be relatively “happy-campers,” excited to learn new things and to enhance their effectiveness in one or more of their professional roles, and working with them as they move their careers forward may be very rewarding. But some of your work may be more challenging. Some of the faculty who find their way to you may be ill-suited to careers as academics, or at least not well-matched to the needs and priorities of your institution. Think carefully about how you would provide a “safe” space for faculty to engage in the kinds of meaningful reflection that tending to their careers deserves.
Merdinger: If this is an area that you’d like to pursue, first, know your own discipline well. What are best practices in your discipline for teaching and learning? Be a student of your discipline and do research on teaching and learning in your own field. Second, understand your institution, be actively involved in the life of your campus, and also be a student of higher education. Important issues in higher education affect your campus and will affect your work in faculty development. As Amy points out, be careful of fads, and be thoughtful and studious about what works and what doesn’t. Third, be an enthusiastic participant in faculty development events on your campus. Contribute to faculty development initiatives on your campus by working with your own disciplinary colleagues, and by moving your ideas to wider audiences by facilitating sessions at your campus faculty development center. Build your portfolio by being a significant contributor to faculty development activities that focus both on teaching and research. With that background, when those opportunities become available, you are ready to take on a broader, more administrative role in leading faculty development either on your campus or at another college or university.
Hibel: Our final question–what aspect of working in academia are you most passionate about and why?
Strage: Two characteristics make the world of academia different from other work environments: First, colleges and universities attract a particularly wide array of intelligent people – the breadth and depth of knowledge and expertise on your typical campus is truly amazing. Second, colleges and universities also tend to attract people who are self-directed individuals and who cherish their independence and autonomy. I find it immensely rewarding to get to meet so many intellectually engaged colleagues, to help them articulate what they are passionate about, and to guide them to resources that will enable them to bring their goals and ambitions to fruition.
Merdinger: I can’t think of anything more rewarding than helping a faculty member feel confident about a career decision. That includes helping faculty to think about new ways of teaching, new areas for scholarly inquiry, or new areas of service to consider, including academic administration. If we can help faculty to make informed decisions about when and how to retire – certainly this is just another chapter in their career life – this kind of help is both enormously rewarding and, for me personally, very satisfying.