In my university, there is no real retirement age that I'm aware of. I think we have a couple of faculty who are in their 80s. Basically, if you can stand up and teach, you can do it until the day you die if you're tenured.

The effect of this is that many universities have experienced the "graying" effect and have become top heavy, especially in the Professorial and Associate Professor ranks. For many of these faculty, their best days of research and teaching are well behind them.

I'm beginning to wonder whether this has any effect on promotion and tenure decisions. Hiring seems to be more inhibited now, as older folks retire later, especially now due to the recession.

In addition, there is the aversion of administrators and senior faculty alike to have everyone a general (i.e., Rank of Professor and Associate Professor) and no 'troops' (assistant Professors). Is this happening at your university? What do you see?

Another way to go about it might be to make retirement more attractive or better yet, to adopt a model of career development throughout the university, so that from the beginning of our time at an institution, we plan towards retirement and the "organizational culture" is such that retirement will take place. I'm not sure it is tenure per se, but the culture that creates adversarial relationships.

In a university I know quite well, they have made repeated offers to older faculty (over 70 years old) and occasionally, an older professor will accept a sweetened offer - typically 3 x annual pay (from the gossip, it is never disclosed publicly). It makes sense if you are well-off financially, have passed the retirement age, and have other things you would be happier doing. Some types though, would never consider a severance package - being a Professor is a crucial part of their self-image. Take that away and they probably wouldn't live too much longer.