A Go-Bag: Leaving Your Institution

At some point in your career you may be encouraged to separate from your institution, whether for good reason or not.* I leave it to your attorney and academic senate to give you advice. However, be sure that you could walk out of your office with just a USB drive having all your valuable files. Anything else that is crucial to your future work should be at home or elsewhere. My image is that my office incinerated itself, but what I had on my USB freed me from worry. Have a noninstitutional email account (say gmail.com), and it may be time to use it much more, especially if you are inundated with stuff from the institution on your institutional email. [See the previous post.]

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*Red Scare as at universities in the 50s; allegations of misconduct; ...  Also, now that our lifespans have increased and our healthy lifespan is also increased, what used to be 65 as the age when most retired is moving up, given the end of mandatory retirement. For some faculty, earlier than 65 retirement might be a good move. For others, their research and teaching are still strong, and they want to continue, and they will retire later. Very little has been invested in most universities is making it comfortable for senior faculty to retire but still be involved with their research and teaching careers (offices, etc.--space is a premium). At some point, a dean will see senior faculty as preventing them from hiring more junior faculty, and there are many apparently legal ways to make such senior faculty uncomfortable. (It helps if the stock market is doing well.)