The author writes:

"What's more, the "aging" of the professoriate is not a result of faculty members' postponing retirement but reflects a scarcity of young faculty members. A 1997 survey found that today's "young" faculty members are, on average, 10 or more years older than were those hired in the 1970s and 80s. The more-recent hires postponed entering graduate school, finishing their doctoral degrees, and entering the academy for personal, professional, or financial reasons."

Scarcity of young faculty members? Is the author completely uncoupled from reality? (or does she reside on a strange planet in a solar system far, far away?)

"The more-recent hires postponed entering graduate school" Really? I know of many, many, many young scientists who "did everything right" and would have been hired in a heartbeat back in the 1970s and 60s, but who are on the back-burner (adjuncts, post-docs, etc) because there are no jobs available...

I find these lines deeply insulting to the reality of the job market today. Maybe the author should go and read some of the posts on the "jobs" forums, or talk to the many young scholars who end up driving taxi cabs and working three jobs, while the senior faculty like her is clinging on to that desk...

"ones they have acquired during their recent period of training and apprenticeship under older mentors"

Again, the author does not seem to know the reality of the "mentorship" one is subjected to as an adjunct, visiting professor or postdoc. I applaud her is she is indeed one of these rare professors who nurtures and mentors her "underlings" -- but the reality is that most young academics already perform the duties of a professor, but for little pay and prestige.

Picasso painted up until the day he died; he was 91. I don't think you can really defend some anthropological study that implies when creativity ends whiter for Professors or for Mr. Picasso. I plan on painting right up to the end. Colleges and Universities should keep their Senior Professors for every kind of reason but especially for mentorship of the underlings which sounds like some sort of expletive deletive in the comment from tsb2010. Maybe I'm too 'old' to understand what they are implying.

I'm one of those who postponed entering grad school. Got my doc at 42; I'm 57 now. I'm just now entering the senior ranks and expect I'll be here for a long, long time. The lousy enconomy isn't my fault and I don't feel any need to get "out of the way."

I'm a youngun, relatively speaking (in any other profession I'd be middle-aged). Most of our senior profs are pretty valuable, and I for one definitely don't want to be without them; I learn a lot from them, and enjoy their not-infrequently wicked company.

The difficulty is that the deadwood really are deadwood and there's nothing to do with them. When there was mandatory retirement you could at least have everyone retire and then rehire those for term appointments or as adjuncts who were still useful. The problem is that people who are doing nothing at 50 or 55 are likely to be doing nothing well past 65, even past 70 and 75. The people who are wonderful retire when they want but keep doing other stuff, as consultants or adjuncts. I'd rather move to a system where everyone at 65 (or 68? I don't know) retires, and people are re-hired as the department needs them.

Of course in the current budget situation I don't want anyone to retire, just so that all the students get taught!

As a current PhD student I have to say I strongly disagree with this article. Too many times have I had class with "older" tenured faculty members who have long since ended any meaningful contribution to their respective field.

In one class on the history of educational policy I had a professor show the class slideshow pictures of his trips to old school houses in the south. We saw the same slideshow 5 different times in one semester.

In a methodology course I had this semester the professor, who is widely known as a pioneer in his field, was absolutely incoherent, could not answer any questions, spent 20 mins reading poetry, and gave handouts and classnotes that were dated as early as 1983.

This is absolutely unacceptable. I am not denying the value or contribution that these individuals have made to their fields. But keeping them around simply becuase they have tenure is a waste of time and resources. As I student I am left frustrated and without having gained anything of value from classes like this. So while I hold nothing against older faculty members, the automatic status and security that comes with age or simply putting in time seriously needs to be reviewed.

Two things:
First, yes there is a risk of older faculty becoming entrenched schools of thought whose time has passed. These faculty sometimes to act as a drag upon departments, colleges, and universities.
However (second), what Susan Kemper is arguing against is a myth. A commonly held assumption, perhaps based upon some bit of anecdotal evidence.
It is like the idea that professors need to be "forced" to do a good job teaching. Like no child left behind, these "reform" movements operate upon an assumption that begs the question. Do I beat my wife? No. Do I care about teaching? Yes. Because I am older, does that mean I suck? No.

A senior faculty artfully ripped off my research proposal and crafted it into a new publication. In an interview, he said he wanted to prove to the world that he was "still" there--not a dinosaur. Yes, all it takes is a shot of botox, youthful vanity, and a powerless scapegoat to keep things going. I am sure the world is still wonderful.

I'd love to have a chat with mdorime and mochacoffee. Wow. (I had similar experiences in Ed classes.)

This article is useful because it offers a dissenting view of a situation that is too frequently assessed anecdotally and intuitively.

In my U we have younger profs who don't rack up much in connection to the field and "older" (60+) who are still doing it after all these years.

I, too, was puzzled by the things that put off the first poster. We don't get the hundreds of apps that we got back in the day for job postings, but we get enough to choose from. Hiring freezes are keeping depts from hiring, so you don't want people leaving just now.

There's a federal law against discrimination based on age, but that doesn't stop a dean I know from talking about the "old State U faculty" vs. the "new State U faculty."

The average age of a grad student I think is rising. I waited until most of the children were grown, so finished up at about 43-44.

AAUP says," Based on our analysis of data from the Survey of Doctorate Recipients, the average age of attaining tenure in the sciences and social sciences in the United States has advanced from a little over thirty-six in 1985 to greater than thirty-nine in 1999. . . . The graduate population is aging as well; the average age of a PhD recipient is now nearly thirty-three compared to thirty-one two decades ago. If this pattern holds or intensifies, the problematic nature of the timing of faculty careers and family formation may greatly affect future generations of doctoral students."

There are many distinguished and productive older faculty members in higher education. Advocating for the mandatory retirement of faculty based solely on age is advocating for illegal discrimination.

For much of the age band prior to 70 or so, there is little evidence that age and job performance are either positively or negatively correlated (that is, there are just as many good and poor performers at young and old adult ages). The 'career age' issue is something that has been extensively discussed by D. K. Simonton in his books and articles.

Personal anectdotes are all well and good, but not useful as scientific evidence. However, a good source for more detailed information on the aging faculty topic is the following book:
Bland, C. J., & Bergquist (1997). "The vitality of senior faculty members: Snow on the roof--fire in the furnace." ASHE-ERIC Higher Education Report, Vol 25, #7, Washington, DC. The George Washington University, Graduate School of Education and Human Development.

The author also fails to take up the question of technology.

In our small department, the older faculty are regarded as a drain largely because they seem to believe there's some unwritten rule that after a certain age you no longer need to learn anything about new technology. As a result, we have faculty in their sixties who:
1. Do not know how to use Blackboard
2. Do not know how to open attachments (I kid you not!)
3. Do not know how to "send someone a link" (and when they discuss being asked to do so, you'd think they were being asked to perform brain surgery)
4. Do not know how to use Powerpoint
5. Do not know how to check their messages using a cell phone
6. Do not know how to set up a teleconference with remote students
7. Do not know how to Skype
8. Do not know how to use Facebook
9. Do not know how to use the scanner on the xerox machine (Instead, referring to this as a very complicated process).

Anytime one of our senior faculty requires that any of the above activities be performed, it requires their calling tech support, grabbing any lower ranking female administrative staff (whom they refer to as "secretaries) and roping all of the available teaching assistants into helping them. Drain on our department? Youbetcha. I don't care how many books you publish at the age of 80 if the students refuse to take your classes because you can't manage to learn how to use Blackboard.

Mandatory retirement is not a substitute for post-tenure review.

Maybe Stanford, Harvard, and others with too many gray-haired faculty should actually consider making a tenured offer to someone under 50. They spend all their resources hiring the current big names to help their current ranking, then 10 years down the road they find that the faculty member is 67. Not hard to do that math in advance. Then they run off most of the small number of assistant professors that they do hire.

Senior faculty do most of the undesirable service in my department. I hope they stick around a lot longer.

Some of us, senior faculty that is, have been involved in major advances toward educational reform in our respective institutions. We know how to use the available technology very well. Sure, there are those that resist change but some of these members of the faculty have made significant contributions and personal sacrifices for the benefit of the institution. Their experience is and continues to be invaluable. In fact, many times tenured and senior faculty will crank up their teaching responsibilities in order to help the younger faculty have more time to develop their research agendas. I think that this is a natural process in every department. As for tenure, eliminate it and end academic freedom forever. Talk no evil, see no evil, hear no evil.

I concur with the earlier comment that amounted to 'once deadwood, always deadwood.' Our dept tries to be careful about tenure but we have still made some mistakes. Our older faculty are among our most productive. Younger errors are, well, not. (productive that is)

Why the issue? Aren't we ALL hoping to get old some day? In some countries, people look up to their elders. Doesn't it come down to who's doing his job and who's not?

We ought to do a better job of reviewing performance and productivity before awarding tenure and conducting post-tenure review. Good teaching, productive research and publication, leadership on campus, and representing our colleges and universities to our communities -- all of these activities are done by individuals. I have seen "deadwood" in men and women in their thirties and forties. I am troubled by the unspoken assumption in many of the comments that we ought to shape personnel policy to reflect ascriptive age cohort membership rather than in relation to individual performance.

The ageism is disgusting. There are many young people who go into academics because they can't think of anything better to do. Let's get rid of them. Youth does not equal good thinking.

I suspect there would be less ageism if academia didn't come with such strict hierarchies. Since you almost always have to be older before any real power accrues in a given department (power, not responsibility), it stands to reason that there would be animosity between those with power (older) and those without (junior). I don't think it has much to do with scholarship or service.

I will say that, as a grad student, I worked with junior and senior faculty on the exact same course in different semesters. The senior faculty were, without fail, more interesting lecturers, more flexible thinkers, and more generous scholars. That's anecdotal evidence, of course, but I offer it as a counter-balance to some of the anecdotes above.

If all of the anecdotal cases and unsupported opinions are removed from these comments, what is left? We can all think of an example one way or the other, and we all (should) know about confirmation bias in forming our beliefs. In the end, what are the consequences of one position or another winning this argument? All I can think of is either forced retirement or not, which is a blanket, uncreative, approach that does not accommodate individual cases. Maybe rather than debating only two alternative positions, we should be devoting our energies to finding creative solutions that accommodate indivdiual cases. Isn't that what tenure is all about? Why not have a high-stakes tenure-type decision when a faculty member reaches 65?

I agree with the commenters who noted that there is a qualitative difference between senior faculty who are still present, and those who just take up space. The problem is, with tenure the way it is, there's no real way to get rid of the former while keeping the latter. Don't get me wrong, I'm a huge fan of tenure, but there has to be an 'out' somewhere that allows schools to unload their deadwood. New tenure-track faculty have to 'do something' to keep climbing the tenure ladder, so why not make senior faculty who have gained tenure beholden to some set of standards, as well? If you don't contribute, you have X amount of time to rectify the situation or you will be asked, firmly, to retire with grace, or face termination.

I sympathize with tsb2010 who seems to be bitter about the shortage of openings for full time tenure track faculty, but given that administrations are often reluctant to fund such replacements for retirees s/he is mistaken if s/he thinks that forcing older faculty to retire would improve his/her situation. The trend to replace full time tenured faculty with adjuncts would just accelerate.

I worked at ABC Research University and one of the older profs didn't know the new technology and had to ask the secretaries to help him with Word, printing, Excel, sending email, etc. He didn't use Blackboard and used transparencies. He couldn't half remember things and he was staring at 20 year olds that knew better than him. That's embarassing.
I'm an adjunct and I babyboomer age...my students are trending younger, but luckily I'm at a community college, so I get urban students graduates from the public schools. Community College is where it's at, because you still have students that need remedial help.

I can identify relatively unproductive faculty at all ranks and ages, not just the extremes, and have seen techno-klutzes pretty well scattered, too. And, I owuld add, have seen cases where more tech does not imply better education: which matters more, a timely and complete Bb grade form or a sound and insightful explanation? We're still here to edcuate, and sometimes technology and the new varieties of academic accountancy steal time from our mission.

As for the scarcity of young faculty, a comment that elicited a sharp snap from an early responder, please note that the noun is "faculty," not "doctorates": the academic age structure would be realigned and the faculty refreshed with a steady, sustained spell of hiring of tenure-track assistant professors...and I have some ideas about where to find resources to do so.

Some have lamented above about older professors handing out class notes from the 1980s, or inability to answer questions, incoherence, etc.
Fact is, in their 30s, those professors were probably unable to answer questions, were incoherent, handed out old notes, etc. but it was called inexperience.
My experience is: once a great teacher, always a great teacher, regardless of age, and most often the reverse is true... unfortunately.

...and many younger academics are arguing for the creation of an academic policy environment which they will rue when they reach thier 50s and beyond!

I'm 58, use our campus technologies quite extensively, yet when I try to coax my junior colleagues into using some of the technology listed by lotsoquestions (but not Blackboard, thank you very much, as I'm not that interested in socializing students into technology that they will never see again once they leave campus; nor checking messages on a cell phone, because I use my iPod touch for that, which is convenient because with Mobile Me I can synch with my calendars and other applications once I check a message; nor Facebook, as I'm not that keen on socializing citizens into giving up tons of personal information that marketers will then use), they drag their feet. I wish these young whippersnappers would get up to speed!

It's OK for senior faculty members to draw ONE salary at A university. What is utterly unacceptable is that increasing number of senior faculty members are drawing what amounts to TWO salaries at TWO universities--often retiring at public universities and then landing at a private one. This wide-spread greed undermines whatever pious BS senior professors say about their place in American higher education.

#25 said it best. Bad teachers are bad teachers, regardless of age. Some people get better at it with hard work, but I find that older profs are more resistant to change.

22286593,

I don't have a problem with a professor retiring from a public university and teaching at a private because at least the professor has to go through the vetting process of being hired. Deadwood are less likely to make it through that process.

Well #12 & #23, I can do all those things. But you know what. None of it makes me a better teacher than the person who can't. Maybe you need to ask yourselves what this has to do with being scholarly, doing research, doing teaching. When did these become compulsory. I asked some students 5 years ago who their best teacher was. Professor X, they replied unanimously. He never uses .ppt He gives us one page of the outline of his lecture, and then he talks about it. He is so clever to be able to do that so clearly. But we really have to take detailed notes to make sure we don't miss anything ! and to do that we really have to listen and work hard to understand ! Great teaching, old school. Wish I could do that. And so do your students wish you could, if you were allowed.

There are young faculty who are meh, and old. And young who are great, and old who are great.

I am a postdoc hoping to become faculty. I would like to teach as long as I am passionate about it, and my students are benefitting.

How can we put protections in place to protect me from a youth movement when I am old and a great teacher, and to protect the students when I am old and out of touch with the current knowledge?

We should keep great teachers and let poor teachers retire early. How to differentiate between the two? Self selection should work fairly well. Not many lousy teachers want to put up with another dreary semester of whining children, and not many great teachers want to miss another exciting semester of teaching and learning with eager young students filled with the promise of tommorrow.

The idea that more 'mature' (euphemism for 'old' ) faculty have lost, or are 'losing their faculties', so to speak, as well as that "we need younger people with new ideas" is inaccurate and a
trite expression of academic agism. It's also categorical, "either-or" thinking that should
not we academics try to avoid ? People have new and fresh ideas no matter how old they
are.

Years of ongoing learning through conduct of the multiple activities in an academic career,
contribute to the senior faculty having more extensive and complex understandings of not
only their own fields, but also others as well. These faculty in general have more perspective,
more ideas, more contacts, more ways of being productive, etc. than those who are younger.

However, we definitely do need to give the opportunity for 'new' not necessarily 'young' people to
enter academia which means that eventually we need to 'step aside' (not 'step down' ) to
provide some openings and so that they have the same opportunities we had to develop their
careers into greater capacity, just the way we did. That's why when the time comes - and
it varies - we should and do retire. Post-tenure evaluation is also a good thing. There's no reason why having tenure means that one's performance is not periodically examined and feedback and guidance given. As well, it's not a good idea to pit 'young' against 'old' as too often seems to be the case when tenure and retirement come up.

The issues of how to keep an open system for new entrants into academia and sustaining
and encouraging the ongoing growth and contribution of everybody, is an extremely complex one.
I
For starters I think we need to think about our language and reframe how we express things. Demeaning terminology used towards 'aging' faculty, that perpetuates stereotyped thinking about a complex situation might be dispensed with and new terms used, e.g.

"new" faculty rather than "young" faculty
"senior" or "mature" faculty rather than "aging" or "old" faculty
"step aside" rather than "step down" for faculty who are planning to retire
"the ideas of everybody, young and mature, new and with more years in position" rather
than "young people with new ideas."

@ iasccrd - your problem with "getting rid of the deadwood" has two sources: unions and tenure, both of witch contribute to a lack of accountability.
Also, I would argue that in many fields "the best" or most desirable hires for the academy are people with experience in places other than higher education. Higher education is almost completely disconnected from the American people and reality. This is a result of people entering the academy at age 18 and never leaving. There ought to be a law...

"We should keep great teachers and let poor teachers retire early. How to differentiate between the two? Self selection should work fairly well."

There are a couple of problems with this approach. The first has to do with incentives, in my unionized shop the deadwood have a higher base salary than everyone else. We reward people based on longevity not on output once you become a full professor. So earning $100k+ for 9 months work is pretty lucrative. Second, professors are no more moral than the rest of society, so they never consider the effect of their actions on others and just choose what is good for themselves. Finally, after my many years in academia I have come to the conclusion that we have a lot of people with very little self awareness. We have people who do zero research who think they are the best researchers in the department.

I never argued for a forced retirement. But I feel insulted when the author makes such unfounded and ludicrous claims that there is a scarcity of young faculty members. Such statements may make her feel better about herself (and more justified), but are simply not true - again, talk to somebody who's a science postdoc, or an adjunct/visiting prof. In many fields there are hundreds of applications for one tenure-track spot.
Also, I applaud older faculty members who are true mentors. I would just like to see more of them... (so far I can count them on two fingers)

In response to #33, finally a sane answer. It is demeaning and unflattering to the writers themselves when they make stereotypical remarks concerning aging.

I am over 50, just started a doctoral program with an advisor who could likely be my daughter. She is brilliant and we find that we are often on the same intellectual path. I am looking forward to having her lead me on this academic journey. The rest of the time I teach in Community College, where students are vibrant and engaged, and still give me great reviews. I ain't dead yet, can teach you how to use Microsoft office and BlackBoard,and don't intend to stop learning and growing as long as I can process a thought.

Haven't we learned yet that we are all individuals? There is no one size fits all when it comes to gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, or age. Let the best ideas prevail, no matter who they come from.

Organizational culture and systemic atrophy are the problem, not aging.

This article evades the real issue: productivity. Productivity and the expectation thereof should have nothing to do with age.

The real problem is that post-tenure faculty often lose their internal motivation and get little outside encouragement (expectations and rewards) for maintaining productivity. They do a minimal job to fly under the radar.

Research universities such as the author's own University of Kansas must make it clear that productivity is an expectation of faculty at all levels regardless of rank or age. They must reward productive faculty and make it clear that those who are not productive are expected to be.

"Senior faculty do most of the undesirable service in my department. I hope they stick around a lot longer."

Almost died laughing while reading this truism. After being drafted as department chair and now serving on numerous committees that perform the heavy-lifting of the university, this strikes a resonant chord. The problem is the stereotypical idea that senior faculty are "just teaching" from old lectures. Not (very) true where I work.

I actually look forward to my post-promotion reviews in a similar fashion to my original tenure case. (plus the idea I may receive some additional compensation from a positive review)

I am always amazed by what I usually can accomplished in a few years time when I set my own work as a top priority. Unfortunately service and administration take their toll on the available time for my personal work.

(I'll be sixty next year and have never worked harder in my career)

In my university, except for a small minority, senior faculty do the least service work. In fact, some of them deliberately make life difficult on the committees they serve on in order to avoid being asked to serve on any additional committees.

stinkcat, I have also encountered this phenomenon. Tenured, senior faculty do bad jobs not just on committees but also on teaching. Therefore, they are asked to do less and less of each.

Post-tenure review is the way to go. All faculty shoukld be required to go throufgh an official review process every three to five years.

Tenure means one cannot be fired arbitrarily or because of controversy. It does not mean that one cannot be fired for poor performance.

I'm sure the author is still doing a fine job. At what point, however, will she decide to step aside and make room for someone eager to enter the profession? If she wants to continue working in her specialty, then she can always volunteer her time. Retired almost 10 years, I chose to formally leave higher education at the age of 54 (just short of 55) after a wonderful career in teaching and administration. I now give back to my institution by providing an annual monetary award to deserving instructors.