Light on the Hill, Volume II
Miller, Russell
1986
FRINGE BENEFITS. Until 1982, when federal and state legislation extended the retirement age of college and university faculties from sixty-five to seventy, tenured faculty at Tufts (those elected "without limit of time") lost their tenure at age sixty-five but could continue on the faculty on a year-to-year appointment until reaching the age of seventy. (According to an interpretation by the trustee Executive Committee in 1960, this age restriction did not apply to those employed part-time.) The practice was introduced by President Hallowell in 1974 of recognizing retiring faculty each year at Commencement, and of presenting each with a scroll. There were occasional exceptions to the seventy-year rule, and some instances in which faculty members (or administrators) continued into their mid-seventies. In recognition of this fact, a modified provision was drafted in 1974 to read that "a faculty member normally does not teach after his/her seventieth year." Emeritus/emerita status was granted ordinarily at the time of retirement by trustee action. In 1974 it was provided that a faculty member could teach in a part-time capacity after retirement, if both the dean of the appropriate school or college, and the faculty member, mutually agreed to such an arrangement. | |
Financial provision for Tufts faculty who had retired from active teaching had been first arranged by a free pension plan operated through the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching after Tufts had become an "accepted institution" in 1906, one year after the system had been established. What became the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA) was initially organized as a part of the Carnegie pension system in 1918 and was separated from the parent organization twenty years later under its present name, with a contributory retirement system. A long transition period took place between the phasing out of Carnegie pensions and the full operation of TIAA. As of 1963, there were still nine retired Tufts faculty under the old Carnegie plan, together with seven widows. The oldest recipient was Myron J. Files of the English Department, | |
159 | who retired in 1957 and died in 1984 at the age of ninety-two. He had received $670 annually, beginning with his retirement. As in many other such instances, Tufts offered to supplement this modest stipend, but in 1963 Files, a model of frugality throughout his life, declined the offer. By then, he was eligible to receive Social Security benefits for which academic personnel had become eligible in 1951. |
The original total contribution when TIAA had been introduced at Tufts in 1936 had been l0 percent of base salary, with Tufts and the faculty member each contributing 5 percent. The contribution of each was raised to 7 1/2 percent in 1948, and from 1951 to 1965 the college's contribution became 12 1/2 percent of the 15 percent total. This was intended to offset a virtual freeze in faculty salaries and as a device for recruiting good faculty. A somewhat more complex formula was introduced in 1965 which linked the percentage of contributions to the Social Security base, but in which Tufts' share was larger than for the individual faculty member. Voluntary participation in the College Retirement Equities Fund (CREF) was authorized in 1952. This gave the faculty member a choice of combining a fixed annuity (TIAA) with a flexible one (CREF), the amount of the latter depending on the fluctuations of the investment market. | |
After Social Security coverage for academic personnel became effective, Tufts' announced objective was to provide faculty whose academic careers were spent at the institution a retirement income, including Social Security benefits, equal to approximately 50 percent of their average base salary over the last five years of service prior to retirement at the age of sixty-five. | |
With the increase in Social Security taxes and benefits, the university's obligation under this formula was gradually reduced, although the amount of its contributions as an employer was of course increased. Such contributions had risen from a total of 3 percent on $3,000 in 1951 to 7 1/4 percent on $4,800 in 1963 to 9 1/4 percent on the first $7,800 by 1968. The effect of these developments on Tufts personnel by 1963 was to provide the lower salaried individuals with 15 percent more final salary for retirement income than the higher salaried person received as a percent of final salary. As salaries increased, the disparity between the two groups became greater in favor of the lower salaried individual. In order to achieve greater equity in the annuity program, the institution adopted a step-rate plan, effective in January 1965. This plan provided for greater total investment in the teachers' retirement annuity on that portion of salary which exceeded the Social Security base. This amounted to a contribution of 3 percent of the individual's salary and 15 percent by Tufts. | |
160 | Eligibility of individuals in the lower ranks was also liberalized in the early 1960s. Previously, newly appointed assistant professors had to wait a full year before they could participate in the annuity plan. Beginning in 1964, they were eligible to participate immediately upon appointment. Those with the rank of instructor, who previously were not eligible to participate in the retirement system at all, were made eligible, beginning in January 1965, after two years of service. |
The trustee Educational Policy Committee ruled in the 1960s not only that husbands or wives holding concurrent academic appointments were entitled to the same benefits relating to leave and eligibility for tenure but that TIAA annuity benefits were to include both partners in husband-and-wife teams. | |
Collective level insurance through TIAA had been first provided in 1949, with a face value of $5,ooo, at a cost of half a million dollars to the college and $30 a year to each faculty member. It was required of all faculty under the age of seventy in 1953. A major medical insurance plan through TIAA was made effective in 1960, and four years later, $5,000 of major medical insurance coverage was extended to retired employees and their families at no cost to them. Long-term disability group insurance was provided, beginning in 1974, with a minimal employee constribution. A fringe benefit of long standing very much appreciated by some members of both the faculty and the administration was tuition remission at Tufts for their children when the latter reached college age and had been admitted to the institution. The policy had been introduced in 1900, largely to supplement the miniscule salaries then being paid to the faculty. An annual tuition subsidy of $1,000, paid directly to any accredited college or university for a maximum of four years per child, was provided in 1960, and replaced a tuition exchange program. The subsidy was increased to $1,250 a year in 1962. Spouses of full-time members of the faculty and the administration were likewise entitled to full tuition remission. Substantial equivalent benefits were authorized for both support staff and their children, including 50 percent tuition remission for staff at institutions other than Tufts, effective 1 September 1985. Tuition remission was by no means a bargain for Tufts; it cost the institution a substantial amount. With tuition at $3,600 in 1975-76, the equivalent of $267,800 was provided free of charge. The seventy-four students receiving tuition remission that year were drawn from all divisions of the university. | |
Although not as widely advertised as were basic salary scales by way of the AAUP and other channels, the constantly enlarging and | |
161 | improving fringe benefits added significantly to the economic welfare and security of Tufts personnel. |
One of the faculty amenities which flourished particularly in the 1950s and still existed in the 1980s was the Tufts Faculty Club, to which all members automatically belonged. A club had been first organized in 1896 and met monthly. Half of the meetings were held in Boston so that the medical school, and later the dental school faculty, could attend. Those meeting on the Medford campus often convened in faculty homes. The club originally operated as a literary as well as social club. Amos Dolbear, of the Department of Physics, delivered a lecture to the club in 1897 on "The Relation of Physiology to Education." The club eventually disappeared but was revived in January 1950, complete with a set of officers. All dues were voluntary, and suggested amounts were scaled according to academic rank. | |
Until its revival in 1950 the Faculty Club had had no home to call its own. After the Memorial Wing had been added to Eaton Library in 1950 the idea was briefly considered of providing a faculty lounge in the new section; instead, it housed the Gott Memorial Library until it was moved to the new central library in 1965. In 1949 the trustees had acquired for the exclusive use of the entire faculty what had been a residence adjacent to the campus. Located at 38 Professors Row, it was known as the Brown-Durkee House. The property was originally leased because of the reluctance of the Durkee family to sell, but it was finally purchased in 1963. The building, erected in 1866 by Benjamin G. Brown, who taught mathematics, had been occupied subsequently by his daughter, Henrietta Noble Brown, the first woman to earn a Tufts degree (in 1893). In 1895 she had married Frank W. Durkee, who taught chemistry. One of their two sons lived in the house until the spring of 1949. In the fall and winter of 1949-50 the interior of the house was remodelled for faculty use, with a dining room to serve a noon meal. The food was prepared in the kitchen of a nearby dormitory (Metcalf Hall). The dining room opened in January 1950 and served a choice of two luncheons, one at 50¢ and one at 65¢. The dining room was replaced by more commodious quarters when a faculty dining room was provided in Carmichael Hall, opened in 1954. The upstairs of the building on Professors Row was used as living quarters for unmarried male faculty members and the basement was equipped with eighteen lockers available for rental. The downstairs rooms were used for committee meetings and social gatherings until the building was put to other uses, beginning in 1963. The structure was razed in the summer of 1984 to make way for a campus center. | |
162 | Enlarged facilities for the Faculty Club were made available when Mugar Hall was built in 1963, but not for the exclusive use of the faculty. A multi-purpose lounge and a faculty dining room were provided. The loosely organized club continued to perform a valuable function in sponsoring a wide variety of social events of interest to the faculty and to their families. |