Johns Hopkins University is launching a voluntary Senior Faculty Transition Program to help eligible full-time tenured faculty navigate the next chapter of their professional lives. The recently announced program, which is similar to those at many peer institutions, offers a one-time opportunity to receive a financial incentive package designed to facilitate and support their transition from employment with the university.
The transition package includes:
- Incentive payment of 100% of a participant's annual academic base salary
- Transition cost incentive
- Health care incentive payment
- Medicare/Medigap exchange counseling
- Academy at Johns Hopkins membership eligibility
Eligible faculty will receive notification by email and U.S. mail. Faculty who choose to participate in the program must submit an election form no later than May 1, 2022, and all faculty who participate in the program must retire from the university on or before June 30, 2022.
Eligible faculty must be full-time full professors (tenured faculty or faculty in the School of Medicine with a contract to retirement). Faculty members' primary appointment must be in one of the participating schools: School of Medicine, School of Nursing, Bloomberg School of Public Health, Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, Whiting School of Engineering, Carey Business School, or School of Advanced International Studies. They must be age 67 or older by July 1, 2021, have at least 10 years of full-time continuous service to the university at the time of eligibility, and be in good standing. The program is voluntary.
"Everyone who meets the criteria is eligible," says Andrew Douglas, vice provost for faculty affairs and a professor of mechanical engineering in the Whiting School. "But the program won't continue forever. It's a one-year window to enroll, so you'll have just under a year to decide if you want this."
There may be instances in which participants in the Senior Faculty Transition Program will be able to teach, provide clinical care, or do research at the university on a separately agreed-upon basis. Such an arrangement will be based on the university's business needs and must be made individually with chairs, department directors, or deans. There is no guarantee of re-employment.
Douglas was selected by Provost Sunil Kumar to lead the establishment of the new JHU Academy, which will welcome faculty from the Carey Business School, the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, SAIS, and the Whiting School of Engineering. The university is committed to developing expanded programming and a new location for the Homewood Academy at the Milton S. Eisenhower Library. More information about the Homewood Academy will be announced soon.
At the same time, the Academy in East Baltimore—housed in the Welch Library—will expand to include faculty from the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the School of Nursing as well as the School of Medicine.
Retired cardiac surgeon William A. "Bill" Baumgartner is co-chair of the Academy in East Baltimore, which now has about 90 members. "You're still part of something, and you meet people from other [disciplines] you'd never have met before," he says. "You may not have to do grand rounds or hold office hours anymore, but you won't miss a step intellectually.
"First-rate research continues," he says. "When you join the Academy, you become part of a community of scholars. If you're worried that you'll fall off the cliff after retirement, you won't."
Baumgartner's co-chair is Carol Ziminski, a retired associate professor of medicine in the Division of Rheumatology.
The Academy that the two oversee was created primarily by Cynthia Rand, a professor of pulmonary and critical care medicine and senior associate dean for faculty at the School of Medicine. Rand is currently working with Douglas on the expansion to other divisions.
The new Senior Faculty Transition Program, Douglas says, "provides faculty with options at the end of their career. It allows them to look at retirement in a more constructive way."
"People who do the work that our faculty does do it because they are passionate about teaching [and research] but at a certain point want more flexibility" in their lives, Rand says. "Energies that once went into [their professions] and scholarship often go into community activities," such as the recent effort by members of the East Baltimore Academy to raise $25,000 to support the nearby Henderson-Hopkins K-8 school.
For more on the Senior Faculty Transition Program, go here or contact program coordinator Jennifer Van Beek at jvanbeek@jhmi.edu.
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