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Video by reporter Brian Woitte

More professors than usual are retiring from St. Thomas this year due to a special retirement option offered to long-tenured professors.

Typically anywhere from two to five professors retirees each year, said Joseph Kreitzer, vice president of academic affairs. But this year 21 professors are retiring.

The program allows professors to retire this year and receive a salary continuation next year.

“It’s sort of a recognition of commitment to institution and how long you put in,” Kreitzer said.

To be eligible for the program, professors must be at least 55 years of age, have been at the university for at least 10 years, and the sum of both their age and time employed at St. Thomas must add up to at least 70.

The plan allows St. Thomas to replace these retiring professors with a younger professor for less money, Kreitzer said.

“The trade off is the senior professor gets kind of a perk for having put in a real long time, a commitment to institution, and the flip side for us is that it enables us to replace them with other people for fewer dollars,” Kreitzer said.

Thomas Sturm, professor of computer and information sciences, is retiring this year after 40 years of service. He said the special retirement option influenced his decision to retire this year.

“Yes, I think the early retirement was certainly a factor in that it wasn’t guaranteed for next year,” he said. “I had toyed with doing it last year actually, but it was such short notice that I just wasn’t mentally prepared.”

The retiring professors’ positions will not be filled next year because the university cannot afford to pay two salaries for each position, according to Kreitzer. The university has temporary plans to cover those positions for the next year.

“In some cases there will be adjuncts, some might have more courses than they’d otherwise done, and in some cases some full-time faculty who are here will take an overload,” Kreitzer said. “In some cases the department will look at it and say, ‘You know, we could get by without offering this particular elective maybe for a year,’ and so they may actually cut back on some things.”

St. Thomas will begin looking at the requests for hiring in about two weeks and make a determination on hiring for people to start in the fall of 2012, according to Kreitzer. He said St. Thomas always hires on a national market but will consider in-house candidates as well.

“They’re always free to apply,” Kreitzer said.

The following is a list of professors retiring this year:

Dr. Angeline Barretta-Herman, Social Work – 20 years of service
Dr. Mary A. Chalkley, Psychology – 22 years of service
Dr. Susan B. Chaplin, Biology – 21 years of service
Dr. C. W. Chrislock, History – 39 y0ears of service
Dr. Michael J. Evers, Management – 37 years of service
Dr. Joseph C. Fitzharris, History – 39 years of service
Dr. Sally M. Hunter, Teacher Education – 22 years of service
Dr. John T. Kemper, Mathematics – 35 years of service
Mr. Joseph Komar, Computer and Information Sciences – 35 years of service
Dr. Daniel E. McNamara, Operations and Supply Chain Mgmt – 35 years of service
Dr. Sally J. Power, Management – 30 years of service
Dr. Thomas D. Redshaw, English – 30 years of service
Dr. Margaret T. Reif, Teacher Education – 21 years of service
Dr. Ann G. Ryan, Special Education – 35 years of service
Dr. Kurt Scholz, Mathematics – 39 years of service
Dr. Ralph Stouffer, Teacher Education – 39 years of service
Dr. Thomas P. Sturm, Computer and Information Sciences – 40 years of service
Dr. Thomas D. Sullivan, Philosophy – 45 years of service
Dr. Trudi Taylor, Teacher Education – 23 years of service
Dr. Serene Thornton, Social Work – 21 years of service
Dr. Miriam Q. Williams, Organization, Learning and Development – 31 years of service

Tom Graves can be reached at grav5886@stthomas.edu.