An Early Retirement Program for the Stanford Faculty: Report and Recommendations.

This background paper summarizes the design of a faculty early retirement plan at Stanford University. Summary and recommendations indicate: (1) Budgetary stringencies at Stanford require that the faculty size remain essentially fixed. In view of this situation, a properly designed early retirement program should be adopted as a means of increasing the turnover rate of faculty positions. (2) The plan proposed in this report is based on the premise that early retirement should be available as an option to every older faculty member to be requested at his or her own initiative. (3) This retirement income provided by this plan doubles in amount during the individual's final six years of service. Furthermore, final pensions are directly related to salary levels. (4) In designing an early retirement program, special attention should be paid to identifying the group of faculty members who the institution would most like to see avail themselves of this new opportunity. (5) A financial incentive scheme is developed which attempts to abate some of its undesirable features; the effect is to offer a greater supplement to low-salaried than to high-salaried professors for volunteering to withdraw from active service. (6) The proposed plan should be offered to the faculties of all Schools except the School of Medicine with the proviso that participation is to be only by mutual consent of the faculty member and the university. Estimated overall effects of the early retirement program on the numbers, flows, and costs of faculty are included. (Author/MJM)