“Generally it’s amicable, but when it’s not consultative it can be ugly,” Huth says of the process of easing into retirement.

Biewener says that the issue of retirement comes up frequently at meetings with Kirby’s office, science chair meetings, and in individual discussions.

But Thompson says he believes the deans are not active in coaxing professors to retire.

“Generally, the deans haven’t done very much. [Secretary of the Faculty] John Fox would go around and tell people information and hints that might influence their decisions,” Thompson laughs. “We used to say in my department: ‘Here comes the grim reaper, coming and knocking on the door to take you away.’”

Most professors interviewed for this article say they feel the administration is particularly helpful in having “productive dialogue” with older professors with regards to retirement.

Discussion, rather than retirement incentive plans, has been the administration’s individual-based approach to faculty retirement.

“It is a matter of finding the prudent way in each case to tell someone that he’s past it,” Mansfield says. “That’s a difficult message to deliver… [but] when it becomes a matter of living on your name, you should retire,” Mansfield says.

Knowles agrees that such diplomacy poses a challenge.

“The challenge for the University is how to encourage those who, for genetic or environmental reasons, have powers that are fading, to retire to make room for younger more vibrant colleagues while both obeying the law and allowing them to continue to enjoy the services of distinguished and uplifting scholars,” Knowles says.

“Age is a judgment call,” Huth says. “I hope we all have some degree of good taste.”

And many feel that professors themselves should take the initiative to retire at a modest age.

“It should become a professional norm, a matter of ethics, even if you’re still as effective as you already were, to retire by about 72,” Thompson says.

Iriye says he will retire at the end of spring semester in anticipation of his 70th birthday in October.

“I decided some time ago that when I reached the age 70, I would retire,” says Iriye, who also chairs the department. “I have been teaching since 1959, not simply at Harvard, and I have enjoyed my teaching, but I have felt that I have done what I wanted to do in terms of teaching grad students and undergraduates. I felt that I would like to now concentrate on reading and writing and publishing as well as other things like traveling with my wife.”

Thus, while some of his colleagues may struggle with the issue of retirement, Iriye seems to have it figured out.