One of our goals at the Office for Senior Faculty Affairs (OSFA) is to unearth useful information for senior faculty career stages and make it accessible. The focus of the recent webinar “The Nuts and Bolts of Partial Retirement” addressed what you need to know when stepping back from your research or clinical careers. You can access the recording and slides from the 1-hour event here. Here is a Spark’s Note version:

• Mindy Dellert and Bethany Westlund reviewed the options for HMS titles in partial retirement, with focus on Professor Emeritus (intended for retiring full Professors, age 60+ with at least 5 years pre-retirement service, the title lasts indefinitely), Corresponding Member of the Faculty (any HMS rank, age 60+ with at least 10 years pre-retirement service, 1-year renewable appointment, also requires an MGH title), and Assistant/Associate/Professor Part Time (still onsite at least 1 day per week, HMS teaching 50+ hours per year). With each of these titles comes HMS privileges such as HMS email address and library access—significant draws for many. Mindy’s very informative slides are here.
• Virginia Rosales of the MGH Professional Benefits Office reviewed what you need to do to maintain MGH benefits. As shown in Virginia’s excellent slides, the answer is pretty straightforward: MGH requires you to be at least 50% FTE (i.e., 20 hours per week) to be benefits eligible. Anything at 50% or above is equivalent to full-time for the purposes of benefits, anything below means no professional benefits. One key here is that what constitutes “50% FTE” is set by your department.
• Jeff Ecker, Chief of MGH OB/GYN, spoke candidly and informatively about the chair’s perspective on partially retiring faculty, including how much an experienced and knowledgeable retiring faculty member can still bring to the table for activities such as mentoring and advising.
• Finally, I pointed webinar attendees to the OSFA “Stay Connected” signup list. This is for partial retirees who would like to be contacted to contribute their clinical, research, or mentoring skills as opportunities arise. We hope to use this list to connect partially retired faculty still looking to contribute their depths of knowledge and skill to MGH/MGB-based opportunities.

One take-home lesson here is to reframe the idea of career transitions from an all-or-nothing retire-versus-don’t-retire discussion to a range of options for reframing a later-stage career. 

With best wishes,

Steve