Faculty Assembly

University of Colorado at Colorado Springs

Guidelines for Voluntary Relinquishment of Tenure
Effective Date: 8/16/2002

1. The purpose of these guidelines is to provide parameters and processes for the voluntary relinquishment of tenure by tenured faculty at the University of Colorado at Colorado Springs. These guidelines are in response to a faculty initiative begun during the 1999-2000 academic year. By doing so, individual faculty may be given greater flexibility and certainty in [making the transition to retirement] leaving the university in ways consistent with but not accommodated easily by the formal University retirement guidelines. Through the application of these guidelines, the campus may be better served in its long term planning for achieving its academic personnel, budgetary and curricular goals.

2. These are guidelines only. They neither explicitly nor implicitly create a legal or ethical entitlement to (an individual retirement) a relinquishment of tenure agreement on the part of the faculty member, nor do they create an obligation on the part of UCCS to complete and implement such an agreement for any particular faculty member. Decisions as to the conclusion of [an individual retirement] a relinquishment of tenure agreement with any specific faculty member are to be made in the context of explicit criteria and processes under which all proposed individual agreements are to be evaluated. Moreover, nothing in these guidelines should be construed as limiting the right of the individual faculty member to choose to retire under existing policy.

3. Nothing in these guidelines is intended to be at conflict with existing University of Colorado retirement policies, and in any case where such conflict may be interpreted to exist, the existing University of Colorado policy governs in all cases. It is intended that these guidelines will allow such [individual retirement] relinquishment of tenure agreements to be concluded in a manner that is consistent with and directly derived from such University policy.

4. The text of these guidelines will include general guidelines, criteria to be invoked in making decisions, processes for making those decisions, timelines for agreements, and budgetary considerations.

1. The development of these guidelines is seen to be within the context of the following university policies:

Effective January 28, 2000 the CU Vice President for Academic Affairs and Research issued a policy on Phased Retirement Programs for Faculty. That policy is open to all full-time, tenured and tenure-track faculty members who are at least 55 years of age and whose age and years of full-time service at the University add up to at least 75. That policy allows faculty to reduce work-load and salary across a period of at least three years, while retaining certain university benefits and as allowed under the university retirement plan, to begin retirement plan distributions. Other conditions also are applicable (see the University of Colorado Administrative Policy Statement on "Phased Retirement Programs for Faculty" effective January 28, 2000).

As part of that policy, Section III ("Guidelines for Individual Retirement Agreements for Tenured and Tenure-Track Faculty) contains the following:

"There may be special circumstances in which the administration needs additional flexibility to negotiate individual retirement agreements for tenured and tenure-track faculty when the phased retirement plan is not appropriate for the needs of the institution and the faculty member. In those special circumstances, individual agreements are permissible under the following guidelines:

a. The Chancellor must approve all individual faculty retirement agreements. The Chancellor may delegate this authority to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs.

b. In approving such agreements, the Chancellor or chief academic officer must determine that the agreement meets the overall needs of the University.

c. Approval of an individual retirement agreement is discretionary and no faculty member has the right to such an agreement.

d. Such agreements must include the surrender of tenure rights and a waiver under the Age Discrimination in Employment Act.

e. Such agreements must be reviewed by campus legal counsel before final approval. The Office of University Counsel must be provided copies of all final agreements.

f. The terms of such agreements may include (but are not limited to) post-retirement contracts for continued teaching responsibilities, differentiated workloads, and health care contributions."

It is under the above section of this university policy that the proposed UCCS guidelines on voluntary relinquishment of tenure have their legitimacy and legal standing. Likewise, the items permissible for inclusion in individual retirement agreements under the above policy (upon negotiation), would also be both permissible and negotiable (but also discretionary on the part of the university) under the campus guidelines for voluntary relinquishment of tenure.

2. All tenure and tenure track faculty who are age 55 or older and who surrender tenure rights in the University are eligible for participation, not withstanding that no individual faculty member is entitled to such an agreement. No department, school or college of UCCS may prohibit its faculty as a matter of unit policy from eligibility for participation in the process described in these guidelines. All agreements remain negotiable and discretionary on the part of the campus, with final decisions made by the Chancellor. This set of guidelines does not preclude other retirement arrangements under existing University policy.

3. All requests for [an individual retirement agreement (IRA)] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreement (VRTA) must go through a standard and formal process, in which the conditions of each individual agreement are clearly stated. This formal process does not preclude informal, non-binding preliminary discussions between the faculty member and appropriate campus officials. Individuals who reach agreement with the campus to engage the individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreement will [be retired] leave in "good standing."

4. Ordinarily, requests for [IRAs] VRTAs will have effective dates of implementation approximately eighteen months from the time of notification (see timeline below). However, the timing and the number of [IRAs] VRTAs completed in any particular year are to be a consequence of the budgetary and academic implications for the campus and may include commitments to implement such an agreement in an immediately upcoming year or in "out years" beyond the eighteen month guideline. At the same time, in many cases it may be in the best interest of both the individual faculty member and the campus for a particular retirement to proceed under "normal" retirement guidelines and policies.

5. Ordinarily, [IRA] VRTA agreements will be for a period of a single year, during which the faculty member has a differentiated work load while retaining full salary and benefits. Normally the faculty member is replaced as needed in the classroom by part-time, temporary, non-tenure track faculty in order to minimize the budgetary impact on the campus. Agreements reached under these guidelines are to be consistent with differentiated work load policies found in other University of Colorado documents.

6. Assuming that all other requirements are met, the following criteria will be employed (with no priority implied at this time) in reaching agreements about the completion of [an individual retirement] a voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreement:

a.. the capacity of the campus to fund the particular agreement, and the total set of agreements for a particular year;

b. the impact of the agreement on the quality and productivity of the academic program of the faculty member;

c. the ability of the department to replace the faculty member’s instructional load;

d. the potential for meeting long-term planning needs in the department or in the college/school; and,

e. the quality and the length of the contribution of the individual faculty member to the campus.

7. Granting a request for an [IRA] a VRTA from a department or college in no way implies a commitment on the part of the campus to return that permanent position to the particular college or department. Vacancies produced by this process are to be treated in the same way as vacancies produced through ordinary retirement and resignations through the regular campus position authorization and allocation process. The eighteen month advance notification before the implementation of any individual faculty agreement should provide sufficient time for the integration of these decisions with the regular position authorization and allocation process. Budget and policy considerations may alter the timeframes for the regular position allocation process and these [IRA] VRTA guidelines may have to be adjusted accordingly.

C. Processes

In all cases, the processes and criteria for reaching [individual retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements are to be consistent, known and concluded in a timely manner in order to meet the needs both of the individual faculty member and of the campus.

1. A standard form for initiating the process will be available to all tenured and tenure track faculty members. That form will comprise the formal and official record for both the application for [an individual retirement] a voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreement and the recommendations from all levels of the campus administration. The standard form will provide the opportunity to address each of the criteria established in these guidelines.

2. The required use of the standard form does not preclude the right of the faculty member to engage in informal discussions with appropriate members of the administration, including Department Chair, Dean, VCAA, and Chancellor. In no case, though, will those informal discussions be evidence of a commitment to the granting of any particular conditions of the [individual retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreement. The approval of such an agreement will be official only after the standard form for such a request has been considered in the context of other requests, as well as the fiscal capacity of the campus to engage such an agreement, and has been reviewed and approved by all appropriate parties.

3. The faculty member requesting an [IRA] a VRTA will submit the standard form to the Department/Program chair. The chair will assess the impact of such an agreement on the academic program of the department, including plans for temporary and permanent replacement of the individual faculty member..

4. The department chair will forward the standard form to the Dean of the College/School for evaluation, including but not limited to consideration of academic program, long-term plans of the college/school and relative priority with other requests forthcoming from that same college/school.

5. The Dean will forward the standard form with accompanying evaluations and rankings to the Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs. The VCAA will assess and prioritize the various requests from the different colleges and schools. The requests will be prioritized by the VCAA in the context of the budget capacity of the campus, their academic impact, and their possibility for accommodating long-term strategic planning and resource allocation.

6. The VCAA will establish priorities among requests and, in consultation with the campus Executive Team for issues of curriculum, student demand, and campus budget, and will make recommendations to the Chancellor.

7. Upon agreement as to which requests will be approved and under what conditions and for which period, a formal [IRA] VRTA will document that agreement and will be submitted to the campus counsel for approval, and then will be signed by all concerned parties (faculty member, department chair, dean, VCAA, university counsel and Chancellor)..

8. The following general timeline (exceptions will be made for the initial year in preparation for and under the assumption of approval of these guidelines) will be used for the process of developing individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements.

a. 9/01: VCAA distributes guidelines and forms to faculty.

b. 10/01: faculty submit forms to department chair for review and recommendation.

c. 10/15: department chairs submit forms with evaluation, recommendation and prioritization to the dean.

d. 11/01: deans submit evaluations, recommendations and prioritization to the VCAA.

e. 11/15: VCAA submits recommendations on individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements and overall budget commitments for discussion to the campus executive committee, and submits overall budget recommendation (no specific faculty members identified) to UBAC for evaluation.

f. 12/01: UBAC submits evaluation of impact of requested budget commitment to support the individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements to Campus Executive Committee.

g. 12/15: after consultation with the Campus Executive Committee, the VCAA makes recommendation to Chancellor for the approved [individual retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements for the coming academic year.

h. 01/15: Upon approval by the Chancellor, the VCAA will inform faculty, deans and chair of the individual faculty [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements that have been approved for the coming years.

At all times during this process the confidentiality of the individual faculty members and the integrity of the campus decision making processes must be protected by all parties concerned, subject to disclosure as required by law. Details as to individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements will remain confidential and will be revealed only to those parties required to know those details. Thus, individual details for specific faculty will not be revealed to UBAC, whose role is to provide advice as to the budget parameters for the general budget recommendations of the VCAA.

The outline of this process does not preclude the chair, dean or VCAA from invoking the assistance of standing committees already privy to confidential personnel information. Thus, the VCAA may choose to ask for an independent review by the VCAA Review Committee.

D. Funding

1. Normally, the implementation of these guidelines will require instructional budgetary support in a specific program beyond that currently dedicated to the faculty member with the [IRA] VRTA. That additional support ordinarily will be required to replace the instructional activities of the faculty member released from those duties as a result of a differentiated work load. The normal replacement costs will be the amount necessary to fund two academic semesters of temporary, part-time honorarium faculty for the courses released under the differentiated work load. In some circumstances exceptions to the normal case may be part of the agreement. Those exceptions would reflect a) no replacement costs provided because, for example, there currently is sufficient unused instructional capacity in the department or because of the lack of demand for the courses that the faculty member would have taught; b) replacement costs at greater than the part-time honorarium rate, such as a full-time instructor or visiting assistant professor, when the instructional requirements are at the level where a full-time person is essential (e.g., when the local market does not have appropriate or sufficient individuals to provide the honorarium instruction, or when other duties associated with the position are required that can be filled only by a full-time faculty member); and c) when by exception the agreement for the differentiated work-load is longer than the two academic semester guideline, and replacement faculty are required for that extended period.

2. The first year funding of these guidelines will require explicit allocations for this purpose from identified budget sources. Such sources may include (but are not limited to) the campus base budget, the initiative funds available to the VCAA and other offices, and the temporary salary savings pool held by the VCAA. If available, hose startup costs may be repaid from subsequent years’ surpluses in the permanent salary saving pool used to support the long-term funding of these guidelines.

3. When fully implemented, the costs of supporting these guidelines (e.g., the costs of replacement faculty during the differentiated work load) will be borne by a central campus pool. That pool will be created from the permanent salary savings generated from the net difference between the salary of the retiring faculty member and the costs of the permanent replacement faculty. The assumption is that in the aggregate (but necessarily in specific cases) the costs of replacing permanent faculty will be sufficiently less than the on-going salary costs were the incumbent faculty not to retire. There are several caveats to this general guideline:

a) the replacement permanent faculty member ordinarily will be appointed at the level of assistant professor;

b) the guideline will be re-visited on a regular basis as part of the campus budget process in order to ensure that the projected pool is sufficient to meet the need;

c) the size of the permanent salary savings surplus pool will ordinarily act as a cap on the amount of resources available to support individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements, although in certain exceptional circumstances (such as the initial years of implementation) that pool may be enhanced by base budget or temporary allocations from the campus budget;

d) non-budgetary criteria are central to individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements (such as programmatic impact) and no actual or implied campus obligation obtains to exhaust the resources in the permanent salary savings pool to fund individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements;

e) certain academic areas have replacement costs greater than the salary in the vacated position (either from exception to the assistant professor replacement guideline, or because of market forces); portions of the salary savings pool may be used to increase the base funding in those faculty position;

f) the funds in the salary saving pool that are beyond that projected to be obligated under these guidelines may be used for either permanent or temporary purposes other than the straight salary costs of implementing individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements (e.g., repayment of the initial year costs, additional benefits to the individual faculty member entering into the [IRA] VRTA, startup costs for new faculty, or new faculty positions, or recruitment incentives to under-represented faculty).

g) the best planning interests both of individual faculty and of the campus may lead to decisions that approve individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements in which the effective data of implementation is delayed for several years. Such delayed agreements commit the campus to the use of resources that themselves are dependent on a variety of forces external to these guidelines. Thus, some figure less than the anticipated aggregate resources to be used in the cumulative individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements for any particular year would be committed prior to the year immediately preceding the ones during which the individual [retirement] voluntary relinquishment of tenure agreements would engage.

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