Retirement benefits are integral to teacher compensation; yet, most pension plans are designed to reward teachers who remain in a system for a full career while levying substantial penalties on those who do not. Even teachers who devote their lives to the profession but do not stay in a single system for their entire careers are not served well by…

The University and College Union (UCU) has been in dispute with 69 universities over the latest valuation of the Universities Superannuation Scheme (USS) -- the largest private sector pension scheme in the UK. Over 50,000 members of staff were balloted for strike action by UCU in opposition to the outcome of the 2018 valuation, which determined…

The growing fiscal cost of K-12 teacher pension plans and pension-induced labor market distortions have led to calls for teacher pension reforms. Dynamic structural econometric models are a useful way to analyze the fiscal and staffing consequences of current and alternative retirement plans. This article lays out the benefits of the structural…

Academic retirement no longer follows a consistent, predictable pattern. This trend demonstrates a need to rethink the nature of retirement in colleges and universities to better serve both individual professionals and their institutions.

This chapter offers guidance for making retirement an open topic for discussion, poses important questions prospective retirees should consider, and suggests a range of actions institutions can take to help academics make a successful transition into a fulfilling retirement.

For the last two decades, Ohio has given its new public school teachers choices among retirement plans. Early in their employment, they are handed a form that allows them to opt for a traditional pension plan, a 401(k)-style defined-contribution (DC) plan, or a plan that combines elements of each. If they make no affirmative decision at all--that…

Jane Frazee, an American music educator, administrator, and author has contributed to music education in the United States. This article surveys the impact of her efforts from 1960 to 2015. A pioneer member and past president of the American Orff-Schulwerk Association (AOSA), she taught music to children and adults using the Orff approach and has…

The challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic led districts and schools to experiment with new staffing and support structures to meet students' academic, emotional, and physical safety needs. Shortages of teachers and substitute teachers, challenging conditions for student teaching, and early retirements all became pressing issues during this time.…

Public school teachers deserve a compensation system that puts them on a secure path toward retirement. The severely backloaded structure of today's public school teacher pension systems benefit only a small proportion of entering teachers while putting the rest on an insecure retirement path. But there is a cost-neutral solution to this problem…

Considering Black women's historic contributions and enduring legacy in education, their continual disproportionate underrepresentation in US public schools is severely problematic. The absence of Black women in many public schools nationally is disconcerting given their potential to improve school outcomes for students of Color. Despite this…

This essay is a compilation of several conversations with Dr. Gene Roth, Distinguished Teaching Professor Emeritus at Northern Illinois University. Dr. Roth is past President of the Academy of Human Resource Development, and although he is well known for his efforts in bringing humor into the field of HRD, he is not the same Gene Roth that played…

Higher education institutions are seeking to ease faculty retirement transitions and to identify ways in which retiring faculty can continue to make contributions in retirement. The University of Southern California and Clemson University, among others across the United States, have established emeritus colleges and retiree centers to offer…

The number of United States professors aged 65 years and older is growing. This older professor presents the stories of four teaching experiences which belong to the larger story of faculty longevity during the past five decades and its subsequent conflicts with retirement. The first was in the 1960s, when she was a new professor, not much older…

When policy advocates debate how best to ensure equity in public education funding, the topic of teacher pension reform rarely comes up. But, in fact, pensions represent a very large and fast-growing source of education spending, much of it distributed in ways that are, in a number of states, anything but equitable. When states subsidize teacher…

This article presents the 27th Delphine Hanna Lecture presented at the 2018 NAKHE Annual Conference. Bethany Hersman states that leadership is about serving, and mentoring is a form of leadership. There is a need to preserve the NAKHE tradition, and one way to do that is for members to live up to their potential by mentoring others throughout…