7.7 Retirement of Faculty and Staff Members

For benefits purposes, MIT considers faculty and other staff who leave MIT at or after age 55 with 10 years of benefits-eligible employment (after age 45) to be “retirees” of MIT, whether they resigned voluntarily, were laid off, or if they otherwise left involuntarily.  Having retired from MIT does not preclude future re-employment at the Institute, although retirement benefits will sometimes need to be suspended if a retiree resumes work at MIT in a benefits-eligible status, and, as noted below, retirement does affect tenure for faculty.  Information about retirement benefits can be found at the Human Resources Employee Benefits website.

A tenured faculty member relinquishes tenure upon retirement. A retired faculty member may be appointed a Professor Emeritus or a Professor, Post-Tenure as outlined in Section 2.3.1 Retired Professors.

As a pre-retirement option, with the agreement of their department head, a faculty member may be appointed part-time at 50-percent time, to do teaching, research and/or service, for a period typically of no more than three years.  A faculty member in this appointment retains their title as a professor, and any chair title and chair scholarly allowance are maintained through the term of the chair appointment.  The faculty member also remains eligible for active employee benefits.  Under this option, a faculty member's tenure appointment becomes a term appointment (that is, not-tenured), with the faculty member retaining all their other faculty rights and privileges during that term.  At the end of the term, the faculty member is retired and may be appointed a Professor Emeritus or a Professor, Post-Tenure as outlined in Section 2.3.1 Retired Professors.