Report on the NBFC 2010 Faculty Retirement Survey
Date
Introduction
The Faculty Affairs and Personnel Policy Committee (FAPPC) was charged with gauging the attitude of faculty on campus towards retirement. The FAPPC, acting on the assumption that many faculty members are not aware of several facts about retirement, decided to take advantage of the access given by a survey instrument to provide information as well. The survey was thus renamed an “Information Exchange with NB Faculty on Retirement”. The FAPPC met several times to discuss the process. A survey was created and circulated to committee members by e-mail for comments, additions and corrections. Subsequently the survey was posted on the web by the Center for Teaching Advancement and Assessment Research (CTAAR) and was tested on the membership of the NBFC who responded at a rate of 50%. There seemed to be no problems and the e-mail below was therefore sent to all NB faculty at the end of the Spring ’10 semester. A reminder was sent at the beginning of the Fall ’10 semester. The overall response rate was 20%.
Dear colleague:
The New Brunswick Faculty Council (NBFC) through its Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committee has been looking into issues of retirement incentives for faculty ever since the demise of mandatory retirement. We believe that most colleagues are not even aware of the opportunities already afforded by the University for easing out into Professor Emeritus status and for formulating a plan for rewarding retirement years.
The full council decided, in its last meeting of the year, to survey all NB faculty and to first “test drive” the survey among NBFC members. This first phase is now complete, with a response rate close to 50%. The quoted very low 8% of responding faculty who are aware that retirees can continue to serve on GSNB committees is a result from that phase. We are now expanding our response base to all NB faculty and challenge you to top the 50% response rate.
The survey is doable in less than 5 minutes. Unless you have already responded as an NBFC member, we ask you to fill out the “survey” found at http://ctaar.rutgers.edu/surveys/nbfc.html .
The survey is, of course, anonymous. The Center for Teaching Advancement and Assessment Research (CTAAR) will tabulate the data and forward them to us. The survey is actually more of an information exchange where we outline what is available and we find out in turn the extent of faculty awareness as well as what else might be important to faculty contemplating retirement.
A final note of caution: it has been made clear to us that the latest retirement plan was a one-time deal and that, as far as the administration is concerned, they are not planning for a similar or different plan in the near future. Nevertheless, the NBFC, based on your input, will continue to propose retirement incentives to the administration and push for their adoption.
Thank you for taking part in this important information exchange.
Paul Panayotatos Chair, Faculty Affairs and Personnel Committee, NBFC
The text of the e-mail, at the suggestion of EVPAA Furmanski, contained a disclaimer making clear that the, then, recent buy-out plan was a one-time deal and that, as far as the administration is concerned, they are not planning for a similar or different plan in the near future.
The survey was headed by the following paragraph:
New Brunswick Faculty Council Information Exchange with NB Faculty on Retirement This survey is completely anonymous. You may leave blank any question you feel is not relevant or you simply do not wish to respond to. Please also note that there are "NOT SURE" and "N/A" (Not Applicable) boxes. You may go back and modify your responses at any time before you click "Submit Survey".
There were three parts to the survey: Part I contained factual information about retirement and gauged the responder’s previous awareness. Part II contained the questions to be used in order to understand what is important and what is not with respect to retirement and Part III contained questions to gauge the composition of the sample and certain financial data.
The survey instrument is described and the detailed results presented and discussed in the attached document.