Retirement, including Perceptions of the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program (Qs 35 and 49)
Click to view snapshot results of (Q 35  and 49)

Four percent of faculty respondents currently participate in the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program and another 15% reported that they are likely to retire from Purdue in the next five years. When responses are examined by school, the following are likely to have 20% or more of their faculty retire in the next five years: Agriculture (23%), Engineering (21%), Science (21%), Technology (31%), Veterinary Medicine (25%), and Health Sciences (21%). Fifty-nine percent of respondents also indicated that they would retire early if Purdue offered them an additional incentive to do so.

Overall, 74% of respondents are satisfied with the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program, but professors are less likely than the other ranks to be satisfied (70% vs. 78% of associate and 88% of assistant professors). Respondents also had the opportunity to comment on the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program.

Q 35. Please add any comments you would like to make regarding the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program.

Approximately half of those who answered this question made comments about the program that were of a very general nature. For example, “Since I am not anywhere close to retirement, I won't comment on this,” and “When I go I am gone.” 

Another three out of ten respondents indicated that they were unaware of the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program, while two out of ten wrote very positive comments about the program. Only a few respondents’ comments expressed their negative feelings about the Voluntary Early Partial Retirement Program, most often commenting about the workload, which they must pick up when someone is on partial retirement.

• Positive Comments
  “It is a very effective and well-designed program.”

• Negative Comments
  “We end up with program units with faculty who aren't here half of the year and thus won't do committee work, and often dump their graduate students on those of us who are here and can't stand to see the students wander around with no one to answer their questions or help them.  I think it's a horrible program.”