LehighWeek Volume 11, Issue 10

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REMINDER:
Don't forget to vote
on Election Day, Nov. 4
Faculty retirement plan previewed
Studio bridges imaginations
Centennial revs interns
South Mountaineer
Abdullah helps Lehigh
halt Dartmouth streak
LehighWeek
with South Mountaineer
Volume 11, Issue 10
Lehigh University Campus Weekly
October 28,1997
New faculty phased retirement plan previewed
No leaf was left unraked
Bill Adams
Kappa Alpha fraternity brothers join a group of Lehigh student volunteers who cleaned debris along
Saucon Creek in Saucon Park on Oct. 19. Organized by Lehigh's Hillel Society, the project attracted
fraternities, sororities and other student groups. City employees provided equipment and advice.
Pam Shealey
Yuka Yazaki '97 escorts Yasunori Nishijima (far right), professor emeritus of Kyoto University, and his wife,
Satoka, during a conference on global competition last week. The tworday event drew business and
academic leaders from the U.S., Japan and Canada to the Zoellner Arts Center. See story on Page 3.
M LEHIGH
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PHILIP A. METZGER
INFO RES CLIENT SERVICES
LINDERMAN LIBRARY
NO.030
A new voluntary phased retirement
plan for faculty was introduced at the
faculty meeting Oct. 20 by Prof. Ed
Shapiro of the Faculty Compensation
Committee (FCC). The Voluntary
Phased Retirement Program, which is
not quite finalized, is being developed
by the FCC and Vice President Rhonda
Gross. A detailed final plan will be
distributed in writing to the faculty and
an open meeting will be held to discuss
the plan before it is approved.
"It is not an early retirement plan,"
said Shapiro. "It is primarily focused on
a mechanism that helps faculty considering retirement ease into a lifestyle
change."
The plan would allow tenured faculty
who have at least 10 years of service
and are 55 or older to reduce their effort
from full time to 50 percent for a period
of up to three years. During this time,
they would receive 60 percent of their
salary and continue to be covered by all
university benefits. These faculty would
have access to their TIAA/CREF
retirement benefits during this period.
The nature of the 50-percent effort will
be negotiated individually with the
department chair and dean, and agreed
to by the provost. At the end of the
three years, the faculty member would
give up tenure and become fully retired.
During the phased retirement period,
budget reductions would remain within
the individual college.
Shapiro stressed that this is a
voluntary plan and does not preclude
individual agreements which are now
also possible as explained in the Faculty Rules and Procedures (R&P).
"We began working on the plan more
than a year ago," said Shapiro. "Our
hope is to have all parts of the plan in
place in the next week or so. The
implementation for the plan is the
administration's responsibility once all
the parts of the plan are in place." The
FCC hopes it would start in July.
The committee had five considerations: to allow faculty to be able to
move into retirement gradually without
the abrupt cutoff of ties to Lehigh; to
provide opportunities for faculty
renewal (as faculty retire and new
faculty are hired); the impact of a
phased retirement plan on the quality
of education delivered; the opportunity
for faculty to maintain medical coverage; and the budget impact on Lehigh.
"It must be budget-neutral," Shapiro
added.
Faculty were required to retire at
age 70 until 1993, when a federal ruling
eliminated mandatory retirement for
faculty.
—Rita Malone
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