An Exploration of Five Stages in Faculty Retirement Decision Making

Humans make thousands of decisions each day. Most of the decisions we make are trivial or relatively unimportant in possible consequences. However, there are a few decisions we make in life that are lifechanging; one of those is the decision to retire from the professoriate. Voluntarily deciding to leave a profession where one has spent a substantial portion of one’s working life is one of life’s major decisions. This qualitative research looks at the various influences, actions, and feelings through the process of deciding to retire. Using a five-stage cognitive decision-process model as a framework, this paper reports on the reflections of 20 recent retirees over the five stages of the decision process from when first seriously considering the decision to postretirement activities and feelings. The results show that while all faculty progressed through the five stages, the timeframe, influences, feelings, and actions were unique to each individual.