Encourage Aging Faculty to Depart

Last week, it was revealed that Professor Hilton A. Salhanik, now of emeritus status at the School of Public Health (SPH), was given a bit of encouragement on the path toward retirement. That encouragement came in the form of a $250,000 bonus, paid to him in 1996 by then-dean Harvey Fineberg 67, on the condition that he relinquish his full-time position. This use of a financial incentive to encourage a professor's retirement has caused quite a bit of controversy in the ranks of the Faculty. One SPH professor called the practice "morally wrong." However, we believe that the use of financial incentives is a good way of keeping the University vital.

Since 1994, the end of mandatory retirement, a tenured faculty member has had the right to remain on the Faculty as long as he or she chooses. Although an aged Faculty is not currently a problem, it threatens to be in several years from now. While many older professors remain productive contributors to University life, others can no longer adequately fulfill their responsibilities. Older professors deserve our utmost respect and should be afforded the greatest dignity. However, they should not hold valuable faculty positions long after their time has passed.

We mourn the loss of forced retirement, for what keeps an academic institution vital but new ideas? New generations require new blood. Since we will not see mandatory retirement again, however, we urge the University to recommend retirement to all professors over 75, and to encourage them to retire with financial incentives.

The first priority of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) should be maintaining the highest quality faculty available. The use of retirement incentives aimed at older professors in order to make way for new ones is an excellent way to ensure that students have access to the best scholars of every generation. The Dean of the Faculty should monitor the Faculty with attention to aging professors who would better serve the University in emeriti positions. Those who fit such a description should be offered a retirement incentive in the form of reward, allows them to remain affiliated with the University so that their resources will not be lost and helps make room for the rising stars of a new era.

Age alone does not dictate that a professor should be encouraged to retire. While we enthusiastically urge FAS to adopt this practice we would strongly caution department heads to base their use of such incentives solely on the criteria of a professor's abilities. Further, if the Faculty does take this important step to promote appropriate faculty turnover, we would like to see an expanded role for the many luminaries who currently hold and will hold emeriti status.

With the end of mandatory retirement, there is a threat that FAS will come to resemble a useless geriatric ward. Retirement incentives, wielded appropriately, offer a promising solution to this problem. We hope that FAS will consider the interests of the students paramount to their charitable instincts and will encourage those past their prime to make room for fresh blood.