Phased Retirement FAQs

The University delegates to each dean or department chair the authority to determine if a faculty member is eligible to receive external funding through the University. Individual faculty members with questions about external funding should talk with their chair and dean.

No, under the policy and procedures, the Chair of a department should accept all applications for the program, in the order in which they are received (please be careful to document the receipt of each application). Upon forwarding the applications to the Dean, the Chair should comment upon concerns about the percentage of faculty who apply (especially if the number exceeds 25% of tenure track faculty in the department). The Dean will then be responsible for considering the situation and providing an appropriate recommendation to the Provost. In other words, the applications of all faculty who apply should be forwarded to the Dean. The Provost will make the final decision, after consultation with the Dean.

The order of acceptance will be decided on a first come first served basis. The date the application is received in the department’s office determines the order of priority. Therefore, it is important that department offices document the date and time of receipt of applications.

Our information is that most campuses have adopted a three-year re-employment period.

The limit will apply to the academic department, not the Center. It will be necessary for you and the Chair of the academic department to discuss fully the faculty work plans during the years of phased retirement. You, as Center Director, should contact the academic department if you receive an application so that the Chair of the department may consider the application.

It is expected that each Dean will set an internal deadline for his or her College/School. The Provost’s Office will encourage the Deans to communicate those deadlines to you as soon as possible.

The policies on conferring emeritus rank are unaffected by this policy. Therefore, departments and college/schools should use the usual process for considering this decision as in other cases where a faculty member resigns and is re-employed. Emeritus status could be requested by the faculty at the conclusion of the period of phased retirement.

The intent of the policy is for faculty to retain their title as they were before resignation.

If the faculty member enters phased retirement or their appointment becomes less than full-time in some other way, the faculty member is no longer eligible to hold a state matching professorship.

Half-time salary is one-half of a faculty member’s base salary for the fiscal year immediately preceding the fiscal year in which the Phased Retirement Plan is implemented for that individual. It does not include supplements for administrative assignments, overloads, summer school of similar payments to which the faculty member is not legally entitled. For School of Medicine full-time tenured faculty subject to the terms of the Clinical Faculty Compensation Plan, a faculty member’s “base compensation” under the Phased Retirement Plan shall be that individual’s Total Projected Salary (Academic Base Salary + Negotiated Component of Salary + estimated Bonus Salary) for the fiscal year immediately preceding the fiscal year in which the Phased Retirement Plan is implemented for that individual.

No. In its plan, UNC-Chapel Hill decided to limit applications only on the basis of not more than 25% of tenure track faculty in a department and not more than 10% of tenure track faculty across the University. Therefore, this does not apply at UNC-Chapel Hill. We acknowledge that this is confusing in the packet of information, but we were required by General Administration to deliver both the UNC Board of Governors’ policy and our specific policy to all faculty members who may be eligible.

Yes, they are entitled to a prorated (50%) share of vacation and sick leave.

The benefits provided under these programs an unaffected by the Phased Retirement Program. You or your faculty should contact those officials responsible for the administration of those programs for additional information.

The full-time administrator should first notify his or her supervisor of the plan and discuss returning to faculty service on a part-time basis. At the same time, the administrator should contact the chair of the academic department in which he/she holds tenure to design a work plan with the chair of the plan. The application should be submitted to the chair with a copy to the current supervisor. The academic chair should then consider the application along with others in the department.

If a faculty member holds a joint appointment, the application should be sent to the base department. The funding of the position will have to be handled carefully as will the negotiations about the faculty member’s part-time work plan. The chairs of the departments that share the joint appointment should work together to make the budget and work plan arrangements.

One-half of salary for active employment is a faculty member’s base salary, exclusive of any supplements received for special assignments or work that has a termination date. The State Retirement System, however, uses actual earnings subject to retirement contributions as the basis for its test of one-half salary. Because of this, there may be a difference between the one-half salary that an eligible employee may receive from UNC-Chapel Hill under the phased retirement program and the State Retirement System’s definition of one-half of final salary. Because of this, it may be possible that a faculty member’s one-half salary amount may be lower than the amount that the State Retirement System may use to determine if a faculty member has exceeded the 50% earnings limit. In some cases, for example, a faculty member may have received supplements for additional employment or summer school that may increase the State Retirement earnings limit, but these supplements will not increase the base pay for purpose of calculating one-half of base pay at UNC-Chapel Hill. Faculty members in the Optional Retirement Program are not subject to the rules that limit earnings after retirement. More information about an individual faculty member’s situation is available from the Benefits Department, at 962-3071.

The full range of faculty activities should be considered in these negotiations. These activities include undergraduate teaching, graduate teaching, research and creative activities, academic advising, writing of grants, publications, committee membership for graduate student thesis/dissertation research, presentations, participation in public service-related activities, participation in professional society-related activities, and departmental administrative activities. The percent of time an applicant will be involved in any of these activities will depend upon the level of time commitment agreed upon between the faculty member and the department head as they create the half-time work plan.

Faculty members must use accumulated vacation and bonus leave before the date of their retirement, i.e. before entering phased retirement, or the leave will be forfeited. Faculty members participating in the Teacher’s and State Employee’s Retirement System (TSERS) may choose to use some or all of their leave to gain additional service credit. Any remaining sick leave balance will be forfeited upon entering phased retirement. Faculty members participating in the Optional Retirement Program (ORP) will forfeit any remaining sick leave balance upon entering phased retirement.

Parking allocations are made at the departmental level. The Phased Retirement Program calls for faculty to retain their existing rights and privileges with the exception of tenure, and departments are encouraged to follow this guidance in allocating parking spaces. However, this guidance should not be interpreted as a guarantee of parking availability since not all faculty members are eligible for parking permits. This issue should be discussed with your department.Separate from the departmental permit allocation system, current policies allow all retired faculty to park free of charge after noon. There is no guarantee that this policy will continue into the future. The policy is currently under review and changes will likely occur before fall 2005.

The Phased Retirement program rules do not allow a faculty member to use summer school teaching as part of their Phased Retirement work plan. Faculty members, if permitted to do so within their TSERS retirement earnings limit, may teach summer school while in Phased Retirement in addition to the agreed-upon responsibilities and compensation in the work plan. Faculty members who are in TSERS may NOT teach second session summer school during the summer they enter the Phased Retirement program.

The recent changes apply only to those who began employment with the State of North Carolina on or after October 1, 2006. Retirees who have completed five years of service and are in receipt of a monthly retirement benefit are eligible for retiree health insurance.

Beginning in 2007, in order to be eligible for the program, you must be in full-time status (e.g., 1.0 FTE). In the event you have been authorized for less than full-time status in your current tenured faculty position, you will need to return to and work in full-time status for no less than 180 calendar days prior to entering the phased retirement program. If you are in this situation, you are advised to approach your Department Chair and seek return to full-time status with the intent to enter phased retirement. If for whatever reason you are not ultimately accepted into the phased retirement program or choose not to enter phased retirement, your Chair could then at his/her discretion return you back to your original part-time work schedule with the approval of your Dean and the Office of the Provost.