AAUP's position is that the purpose of an institution's retirement plan for faculty members and administrators and its plan for their insurance benefits should be to help educators and their families withstand the financial effects of illness, old age, and death and to increase the educational effectiveness of the college and university. (MLW)

Presents guidelines for colleges on selecting employee health insurance carriers and retirement investment programs. Reviews types of insurance programs, presenting examples from several states. Discusses mechanisms for reducing insurance premiums, including claim reduction, self-funding, mail-order pharmaceuticals, and forming consortia with…

A survey of 56 colleges investigated how the institutions approach planning for staffing and the significance given such factors as abolition of mandatory retirement, tenure ratios, faculty retirements, faculty hiring and supply and demand, and related issues. Specific concerns emerged, and findings did not consistently bear out previous research.…

Phased retirement policies are more or less attractive financially and more or less accommodating of individual differences. They are also implemented in varying ways, variations that especially affect departments and academic programs.

This article examines (1) the elimination of mandatory retirement in American higher education, (2) research related to retirement decisions of university faculty, and (3) the author's thoughts and feelings before and following retirement from academia. An interior monologue, stream-of-consciousness method is used to reflect the author's movement…

This paper presents a method for higher education faculty and staff to assess pension plan objectives by determining a retirement income replacement ratio to maintain the salary-based preretirement standard of living. The paper describes the RETIRE Project which researches income replacement using the federal government's annual "Consumer…

The impact on the age 70 mandatory retirement law on future employment opportunities and payroll costs of faculties of member institutions of the Consortium on Financing Higher Education (COFHE) was evaluated. Current and 5-year historical information on tenure-tract arts and science faculty of 27 of the COFHE institutions were analyzed. This…

Results of a survey of pension plans in Ontario universities are summarized according to type of plan, eligibility, member and university contributions, and benefits. Benefits for normal retirment, early retirement, termination, and death are presented. Death benefits are outlined for before retirement, after retirement, and by model pension…

The American Association of University Professors' Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure reports on possible results on faculty salary structure, the tenure system, and retirement options of legislation uncapping the mandatory retirement age of college faculty. Considerations for institutions to make in adjusting personnel policies are…

A study examined the relationship between student evaluations of teaching effectiveness, age of faculty, and timing of retirement among tenured faculty. Results suggest a significant but small impact of age, varying by discipline. Uncapping of mandatory retirement appears to raise no major concerns for dramatic deterioration in teaching…

Some higher education officials say the end of mandatory retirement may lead to lower faculty turnover and could reduce opportunities for young scholars, mainly members of minorities, women, and younger faculty in the departments for which the individual institution is most respected. (Author/MSE)

Charts and graphs illustrate trends in (1) values of college employee pension money invested in the stock market since 1990; (2) college spending on a variety of faculty fringe benefits in 1992-93, by institution type; and (3) the relationship between faculty salaries and the cost of living, 1986-87 to 1992-93. (MSE)

In the late 1980s and early 1990s, the graying of America's college and university faculty coincided with new federal regulations that prohibited mandatory retirement. So in order to both encourage faculty retirements and assume better control of when positions would be vacated about half of all U.S. colleges and universities adopted various…

The effects of the October 1987 stock market crash on older faculty pension funds, gifts and capital drives, endowment funds, and foundation losses and cutbacks are examined. (MSE)

A British report recommending widespread compulsory retirement of mathematics faculty based on current enrollment trends and predictions is analyzed and criticized for both its statistics and its assumptions. It is argued that social influences in enrollment and social considerations in public policy toward education are largely being ignored.…