When a Baby Boomer retires from a job as a truck driver, or welder, or insurance agent, or—ahem!—journalist, there’s a younger, hungrier worker in line ready to step into the void. What’s lost in experience, skill, and wisdom is not insignificant, but what’s gained in energy, tech smarts, and the willingness to work longer hours for less pay, goes a long way in making up for it.

However, when a Baby Boomer retires from a faculty position at a college or university, what’s lost may be incalculable, and cannot be compensated for in youth and enthusiasm alone. What’s lost is often the benefit of decades of scholarly research, intimate knowledge—both deep and wide—of complex subject matter, maturity, leadership, and academic prestige. When the objective is learning, paying a younger inexperienced instructor less to work more is unlikely to achieve it. When the objective is scientific research and winning research grants from government and private sources, there is no substitute for experience and reputation—functions of age and accomplishment. 

The nation’s universities and colleges are experiencing dramatically increasing faculty retirement rates as Boomers reach their sixties. It is estimated that some institutions will see as much as 40-50 percent of their faculty retire in the next decade. Many institutions of higher education have already raised or eliminated mandatory retirement ages for faculty, allowing or encouraging professors to stay in their positions well into their sixties or even seventies. But strategies to retain existing tenured faculty, and to recruit and prepare younger faculty to assume positions of academic leadership need to go beyond the manipulation of retirement ages.

A research study conducted in 2005, funded by the TIAA-CREF Institute, sampled opinions of faculty at the University of North Carolina regarding the university’s effort to recruit and retain top academic talent. The study concluded that mid-career faculty and recently tenured faculty were most concerned about the following factors, when making decisions about accepting teaching positions and/or remaining in a teaching post:

•     Inadequate pay raises

•     Inadequate health benefits

•     Limited support for professional development and sabbaticals

•     Campus location and environment

A survey of faculty at the University of Wisconsin identified the following factors as among those critical in the decision to accept or remain in a position at a university:

•     Positive campus environment

•     Quality of students

•     Strong curriculum in the discipline

•     Financial support for discipline

•     Health and retirement benefits

•     Start-up funds to support research

•     Proximity of other universities

•     Mentoring programs for younger faculty

•     Funding and time to develop teaching and scholarly skills

•     Geographic location

•     Favorable climate for gays and lesbians

Among the factors that negatively influenced decisions were:

•     Lack of competitive salary

•     Limited compensated time for teaching preparation

•     Demanding teaching load

•     Lack of sophisticated technology

•     Limited or no funds for publishing

The findings of these studies reveal no surprises. University and college professors want the same things we all want—reasonable pay and benefits, a positive work environment, and res-pect and support for their work.

While schools in Missouri and Kan-sas cannot offer their faculties the op- portunity to teach on campuses in the mountains or by the sea, they must actively and continually address other issues of concern to their professors. The academic leaders and administrators gathered at Ingram’s Higher Education Industry Outlook assembly made it clear that are doing so. Strategies to retain tenured faculty and to nurture and recruit younger instructors have been formulated and are being implemented.

The success of these strategies is critical, not just to the health and vitality of the region’s institutions of higher learning, but to the health and vitality of the region’s economy. Kansas City’s civic and business leaders have worked hard and long and invested real and political capital in positioning the region as a center for life science research. If these efforts fail, there is no Plan B. For them to succeed, the area’s universities and colleges—the heart and soul of any regional life science strategy—must have experienced, seasoned, respected, world-class academicians and researchers on their staffs, in order to attract government and private research dollars.

The problem is that state universities do not control all the variables when it comes to establishing salary and benefits levels, and creating positive work environments for their faculties. Much of that control rests with state legislatures. Which, ultimately, puts much of the control in the hands of voters. That’s us. We must insist that our universities are well funded. That will mean hard choices when choosing where to spend tax dollars. It’ll mean paying higher tuitions. But if we’re not willing to make some sacrifices, it means we’re not really committed to making Kansas City a world-class leader in life sciences