The Chronicle of Higher Education, June 3, 2005, Friday

Copyright 2005 The Chronicle of Higher Education
The Chronicle of Higher Education

June 3, 2005, Friday


SECTION: THE FACULTY; Pg. 6

LENGTH: 2650 words

HEADLINE: Advancing in Age

BYLINE: PIPER FOGG

BODY:
Amid the students scurrying to and from the library here at North Carolina State University, a professor with a shock of white hair shuffles along slowly. When a colleague a few feet away calls out to him, the elderly man doesn't respond.
A few blocks away, a silver-haired botany professor who is recovering from knee surgery rests her cane outside her office. In another building, an old-timer in industrial engineering marvels at today's technology, recalling the days when he relied on his trusty slide rule.
Older professors have become a familiar sight on this campus. The changing composition of the faculty here and at colleges around the country shows that academe has come to a new age -- literally. That means less room for younger faculty members. While newly minted Ph.D.'s may silently curse older professors for sticking around and holding onto the jobs, colleges themselves have no clear choices. Older professors offer a wealth of scholarly contacts and depth of experience. But colleges with low turnover may miss out on cutting-edge knowledge and novel teaching methods. They may have a less diverse faculty, outdated curricula, and professors who are uncomfortable with the latest technology. Administrators also worry that the number of older faculty members has grown out of proportion to the faculty as a whole.
Some of the statistics are startling. In the 16-campus University of North Carolina system, the proportion of tenured and tenure-track faculty members age 50 or older jumped from about a third in 1984 to more than half in 2001. In 1984 there were only two tenured faculty members over the age of 69. By 2001 the system had 90 such professors.
Other colleges face a similar demographic shift. A decade ago, at the University of Arizona, less than 17 percent of the tenured and tenure-track faculty members were 60 or older. Now, almost one in four professors is that old. At Wichita State University, 29 percent of the faculty were 55 or older a decade ago, and 41 percent are that old now. Nearly one out of 10 professors there is 65 or older. At private colleges, experts say, the situation is compounded: The type of pension plans that most private institutions offer tend to reward professors for working longer.
While the national population is aging as a whole, factors specific to academe magnify the trend. Ten years have passed since Congress ended mandatory retirement, a policy that had allowed colleges to require faculty members to retire at age 70. Many professors hired during the great expansion of academe in the 1960s and 70s are now reaching their golden years. And, because many people are living longer -- and need financial resources to do so comfortably -- more and more professors are delaying retirement, some of them indefinitely.
But colleges are not powerless to combat those trends. Ronald G. Ehrenberg, a professor of industrial and labor relations and economics at Cornell University and director of the Higher Education Research Institute there, suggests using a carrot-and-stick approach. That means using incentives to encourage people to retire. And making retired faculty members who are no longer on the payroll feel involved with their institutions by offering them office space or the chance to advise students. He says that some colleges allow officials to approve who can get retirement incentives on a case-by-case basis. That may help them avoid losing star professors, whom administrators want to keep around for their marquee value. Colleges can also take steps to reinvigorate older professors who do want to continue to come to work. And when that doesn't work, tactics like post-tenure review can persuade underperformers to quietly retire.
Economic Imbalance
On most weekdays a group of professors in the economics department at North Carolina State gets together for lunch, and this Wednesday during spring exams is no exception. Nine professors meet in the department's windowless conference room. They unpack sandwiches and carrot sticks, diet sodas and yogurt. At least half of the professors are balding or graying. Many look like they are pushing 60, if not older.
The exception is the department's lone assistant professor, Denis Pelletier, 32, who good-naturedly accepts his place as the department's one member under 40. The department has 22 professors, and about two-thirds of them are over 55, according to the department's chairman, Douglas K. Pearce. Twenty are full professors, generally between about 58 and 64, he says. All are men.
"There's a problem looming in the future, I think, if we don't begin hiring young faculty," says Stephen E. Margolis, who stepped down in June after seven years as chairman of the department. But with so few junior professors in the department, he says, it's been difficult to recruit other young people. "New Ph.D.'s we're trying to hire look around and think, Well, who are going to be my colleagues? They look for a community of people their age."
The recruiting process also puts some stress on Mr. Pelletier, who had to serve on the search committee for a junior professor last year despite the pressure of being on the tenure track himself. The department did hire a new assistant professor -- its only woman -- who will arrive this summer.
Mr. Pelletier, who came to North Carolina State two years ago after receiving his Ph.D. at the University of Montreal, says the toughest part of being the only young person in the department is having few friends his age there. "I'd like to have a beer buddy," he says. "Someone maybe on a Friday to unwind with."
During the daily lunches, he says, his colleagues often bring up the subject of colonoscopies or talk about some provost from the 1970s. "In 1976," says Mr. Pelletier, "I think I was potty-trained."
Having fresh talent, says Mr. Margolis, would bring in a steady flow of new perspectives and techniques. It would also bring connections to up-and-coming scholars from other institutions. "An academic department doesn't do well in isolation," he says. What's more, the older economics professors are "perhaps not as active as they were in their early 40s and 50s."
There are benefits, though, to having so many experienced senior professors. Mr. Margolis points out that they help with advising, and that they have strong connections to alumni, which has aided fund raising. They also have far-reaching institutional knowledge.
Edward W. Erickson, a 69-year-old economics professor, has taught at North Carolina State for 40 years. He plans to retire next June -- although, he says, he gets better at teaching every year. But when asked to recount the last time he created and taught a course from scratch, he takes a long pause. Finally, he responds: "1984." Mr. Pelletier, in his first three semesters as an assistant professor, has done the preparatory work required to teach three new courses.
Professors like Mr. Erickson say they have stayed so long in academe because it is a great job. A colleague, Michael B. McElroy, says teaching gives him satisfaction and identity in life. "I get disoriented when I'm not teaching and I take summers off," says the 63-year-old associate professor. "I feel this loss of connection with students." Mr. McElroy admits that he's not much of a researcher, and instead teaches three courses a semester, the usual load for faculty members who do not do research. He tried teaching a section of introductory economics two years ago but found he lacked the patience to explain definitions and do the constant drilling that the students in an intro course need.
That is another complication with having so few junior professors: It's harder to offer a full range of courses. Late in their careers, many professors become increasingly specialized and sometimes eschew the basic courses that departments have to offer. And some older professors simply start slowing down.
While Mr. McElroy says he continues to put in a full day's work, logging more than 40 hours a week, he is scaling back. "I want to open up to other things," he says. This summer he will travel to Paris for three weeks with his wife. He started French lessons in January, has been studying French history, and reads Le Monde each day. Still, he says of his job, "I like what I'm doing and plan to do it indefinitely."
The economics department is not the only one at North Carolina State with a surfeit of older professors. Industrial engineering, too, has more than a few graying faculty members, including a 78-year-old who has taught at the university since 1967. Another engineering professor, Richard H. Bernhard, 71, is about to begin his 48th year of teaching. Mr. Bernhard walks with a slight limp, having had hip-replacement surgery two years ago. But he exhibits the energy of someone considerably younger. He credits his verve to the excitement of working on a dynamic campus.
People are living longer, he says, because they feel useful. Mr. Bernhard's CV is a testament to his own usefulness: He is a member of the Faculty Senate and the executive committee of the College of Engineering, campus delegate to the Faculty Assembly of the University of North Carolina system, and chairman of the university's parking-and-transportation committee (even though he walks to work every day). He ran for chair of the Faculty Senate last year, losing out to his friend Nina Strömgren Allen, a professor in the botany department. She is 69.
Flexibility is one aspect of academe that keeps Mr. Bernhard on the faculty. "You can work as much as you want or as little," he says. He says he is also in no rush to leave Raleigh, where the weather is mild most of the year. Like many college towns, Raleigh has a strong sense of community and is brimming with culture. He also appreciates having smart colleagues and a department chairman who, he says, values him. "If you're appreciated, ... if you have a pleasant environment," Mr. Bernhard says, "why the hell stop?"
Ms. Allen, the botanist who won the Faculty Senate chair election, enjoys what she does but has different reasons for delaying retirement. A mother of five, she started her academic career late and took eight years out to raise her children. After her husband died, she had to put all five through college on his pension. She keeps working now because she needs the money. Ms. Allen's retirement fund, half of which was invested in the stock market, took a nose dive during the recent economic downturn, like those of many other professors. Ms. Allen acknowledges that there are certain things she can't do anymore -- "like walk," she says, half-jokingly. She uses a cane after having surgery to replace one of her knees. But she says she doesn't mind working.
"I'm not worn out," she says. "I still find it fascinating." It helps, she says, to have a collegial department in which many of the professors are women. And when boredom strikes, she says, there is always a new subject to explore.
New Blood
Younger professors can invigorate departments. Several years ago, Christopher R. Gould, chairman of the physics department here, said the faculty was getting along in age. But through seven retirements and the creation of new faculty lines, the department has been able to hire 15 faculty members.
The influx of young people has breathed new life into the department. There are seven women on the 38-person faculty, and only two professors over age 65, says Mr. Gould. A creative tension has developed between the young faculty members and those who have been here for years, he says. And having more women has encouraged a stronger focus on diversity issues.
Even the curriculum has benefited. When some faculty members tried to establish a new introductory physics program, Mr. Gould says, the older professors were skeptical. So he offered it to the department's newer faculty members, who jumped right on it. That helped him restaff the entire introductory curriculum. "I'm not sure we could have pulled that off without all these younger faculty," the chairman says.
While the economics department would love to hire a legion of junior professors during the next few years, financial realities prevent that. State revenue is down, and Ira R. Weiss, dean of North Carolina State's College of Management, which houses the economics department, has committed to giving the department just one new hire a year. "Is the faculty happy with the commitment I've made?" he asks. "No." But his hands are tied, he says, acknowledging that the longer the department goes without hiring new faculty members, the harder attracting top-quality people will become. There is a concern, he concedes, that the department's reputation may be suffering.
At Northeastern University, where Mr. Weiss was dean of the business school, he was able to offer buyouts to faculty members on a case-by-case basis. He says he has not ruled that out at North Carolina State.
What to Do?
What can colleges do to avoid the problems posed by an age imbalance in the faculty? Robert L. Clark, an economist at North Carolina State who studies faculty demographics and retirement, has created models of the faculty both at the university and in the 16-campus system.
For starters, he says, colleges should do similar research on their own faculties. By creating models that track retirement rates, faculty age, and changes in hiring trends, colleges would be able to study the effects of different hiring and retirement scenarios and manipulate the models with projected growth patterns to predict the future.
Mr. Clark is a proponent of "phased retirement," which provides incentives for professors to move gradually away from full-time work. In North Carolina State's program, for instance, professors give up tenure in exchange for three years of half-pay and full benefits, during which they have to work only half-time. Such policies not only help colleges know when specific retirements will take place, but also smooth faculty members' transition to retirement. Mr. Erickson, the economics professor, is entering his second year of the program; he calls it "practice retirement." Mr. Clark also advises institutions to study various incentives to learn how each one would affect their faculty. Only then can administrators be prepared for what's coming.
At the University of California at Berkeley retiring professors who win the approval of their department, dean, and a vice provost can become "professors of the graduate school." Such professors agree to retire but are then reappointed for three years or more. They are not paid a salary but can apply for grants, are often given laboratory or office space, and sometimes advise graduate students. The program helps officials hang on to professors they want to keep around, while still encouraging retirement. Some of the university's star faculty members have signed on, including Charles H. Townes, 89, a physicist who won the Nobel Prize in 1964 for his role in the invention of the laser.
Mr. Ehrenberg, of Cornell, agrees that phased retirement is an effective strategy: "It allows people to try out doing other things, and often ... they discover they like it." Colleges should also try to make retirement look attractive, he says, by designing programs or centers for emeritus professors, so they won't feel abandoned when they stop working. And if retired professors are willing to teach a course or two, all the better for the institution.
Sometimes, though, incentives are not enough. Mr. Ehrenberg suggests that when departments require everyone to pull his or her weight -- for instance, by not excusing older professors from teaching core courses -- some would rather retire than keep up.
Eventually the bottleneck of older professors at North Carolina State will give way. "If nothing else," says Mr. Bernhard, "people are just going to die."