Phased Retirement
If a tenured faculty member is retiring, he or she has the option of “phasing” into retirement by entering into a Phased-Retirement contract. A phased retirement contract enables a faculty member to retire and begin drawing retirement benefits while maintaining a partial appointment with the School as a teaching faculty member.
A phased retirement (PR) contract can extend anywhere from 1 to 3 years. At the end of the contract period all appointments shall terminate. Additional information regarding PR contracts can be found in HOP Sec. 3.06. A sample contract is available as well.
Before the University will approve a PR contract, it must be determined that the contract will result in significant benefit both to the retiring faculty member and to the School. Therefore, the department chair should prepare a cover memo when forwarding the signed contract to the Dean’s office that states such benefit has been determined.
The Office of the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs should review the contract for appropriate language. The Provost’s office can also review a draft contract in order to make any necessary changes before the original signed contract is sent forward for administrative approval.
Once all necessary changes have been made and a signed original contract is submitted to the Academic Affairs office, a memo of support from the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs should be prepared and sent forward with the original contract to the Provost’s Office (MAI 201) for final approval.
Upon final approval by the Provost’s Office, a signed copy of the contract will be sent to the faculty member entering phased-retirement and a copy will be sent to the Cockrell School of Engineering’s Dean’s Office for our files.
Note: If a faculty member chooses to enter PR and holds an endowed position, they will continue to hold the same endowment until their PR contract expires. In addition, they will continue to receive one-half (or appropriate percentage equal to appointment) of the salary supplement and, as a general rule, of the discretionary funds from the endowment. Special exceptions can be made for the discretionary funds based on what the Dean feels is appropriate. An endowed chairholder’s salary is handled a little differently. Since the chair is a portion of the rate, the ratios should stay the same.