April 28, 2023

Section 11.7 of the University Operations Manual empowers the Provost to grant retiring faculty emeritus status. Regular faculty retiring “under honorable circumstances” after at least 10 years of service are automatically eligible for the conferral of emeritus status.

 The Ops Manual also authorizes the Provost to grant “permissive emeritus status” to retiring faculty members who do not qualify for an automatic grant of emeritus status. When a request is made to the Provost for the exercise of this special power, the Provost is required to confer with the relevant faculty “bodies”. EFC is the relevant faculty body for advising the Provost on requests for an exercise of the power to grant permissive conferrals of emeritus status to retiring faculty members who do not qualify automatically for emeritus status. Under the Ops Manual, the opinion of EFC is to be accorded “great weight” by the Provost.

At the October 3, 2022 EFC meetings, at which EFC considered two requests for permissive grants of emeritus status, a discussion arose about what standards EFC should be apply in considering the request. It was suggested there was a need to collect and put in writing EFC’s past practices in responding to invitations from the Provost for its opinion about pending requests for permissive grants of emeritus status. The concerns underlying this suggestion were that there was a value in EFC’s responses to the Provost being consistent over time, the recognition that requests for permissive grants of emeritus status are somewhat sporadic, and that there is regular turnover of EFC membership so there will always be new EFC members who are unfamiliar with how EFC handles this special advisory responsibility.

What follows below is an attempt to state EFC’s general past practices in advising the Provost on requests for permissive grants of emeritus status. The statement identifies five factors routinely taken into account by EFC in formulating its recommendation to the Provost.

FACTORS TO BE CONSIDERED BY EFC IN REVIEWING A REQUEST FOR A PERMISSIVE GRANT OF EMERITUS STATUS

1. Is the faculty member for whom the request is made truly a “regular faculty member” as described in the Emeritus Policy? Is the faculty member retiring at a faculty rank or other academic status for which emeritus status is appropriate?
2. Is the retirement clearly under “honorable circumstances”? (Section 11.7a(6) defines “honorable circumstances” as “not being terminated for cause”.)
3. How close to the 10-year minimum time of service is the faculty member’s time of university employment? (The history of EFC decisions suggests that the closer to the 10-year minimum, the more likely EFC’s recommendation will be positive.)
4. Does the faculty member intend to continue be active professionally after retirement in ways that will benefit the university community? (This factor is not determinative, but has been considered important in close cases.)

If EFC approves this document, I propose that it be added to EFC’s By-Laws as an amendment or otherwise placed in a permanent location where it is easily accessible to future EFC members.