ABSTRACT
This chapter describes the three retirement transition options offered by the University of Washington to support tenured faculty in the process of preparing for retirement, deciding to retire, or phasing into retirement. Faculty asked for a program that would address their need for enhanced fiscal certainty during retirement in the face of unstable retirement portfolios and escalating health-care costs. The result was the implementation, in 2010, of the Voluntary Retirement Incentive Program in which tenured faculty could agree to forgo their right to reemployment after retirement in exchange for a university contribution to a medical expense account. The University of Washington’s Partial Reemployment Policy creates a vested right available to tenured faculty who remain employed until the age of 62, which may not be unilaterally revoked. To understand the pattern of use of the Partial Reemployment Policy, the records of the tenured faculty who retired in the 8 academic years from 1999–2000 through 2006–2007 were reviewed.
