Retired profs will be asked to downgrade housing

Literature Humanities chair Christia Mercer lives in a two-bedroom Columbia apartment. But under the University’s new policy for faculty housing, Mercer could be faced with a difficult choice three years after she retires—move into a smaller unit or get out of Columbia housing.

“Many of us were attracted to Columbia and encouraged to stay here,” Mercer, a philosophy professor, said, “with the assumption that we will be allowed to stay in our apartment.”

By the terms of a housing policy which took effect in the summer of 2009, tenured professors and other longtime employees who signed leases between July 1, 1989 and June 30, 2009 can be asked, starting three years after retirement, to downsize or leave Columbia housing.

Astronomy professor Jim Applegate said the new policy will change his life plans in a big way.

“I’m going to teach till the day I die.” Applegate, who’s in his late 50’s, said, explaining that he’s healthy, enjoys teaching, and wants to keep his apartment.

Interim Provost John Coatsworth said that fewer than 10 professors who signed leases after 1989 have already retired and will be affected by the new policy, but this number will go up as more professors from this group retire.

In with the new
Professors who signed housing leases were never guaranteed housing after retirement, Mercer said, but this was the practice.

“This is a form of breaking a promise on the part of the University,” she said.

A 2008 letter from then-Provost Alan Brinkley explained that the University was “finding it increasingly difficult to meet [faculty housing] demand,” which precipitated the implementation of the new policy. As of 2008, Columbia owned around 7,000 housing units, of which 30 percent were reserved for faculty and other officers.

“The big issue is that there is a shortage of University housing,” retired professor Doug Chalmers, who still teaches the Core, explained. “All these new people are coming in, and you need to find housing for them.”

Chalmers signed his housing lease between July 1, 1984 and June 30, 1989, meaning he is grandfathered into the old housing policy—he can remain in the same apartment for the rest of his life, as can all tenured professors and other employees who had worked at Columbia for 15 years prior to retirement. All employees who signed leases before July 1, 1984 can remain in their housing units indefinitely.

But Coatsworth said that maintaining this policy for all faculty members was not sustainable and had to be revised.

“The policy limited the available housing stock and made it more difficult to recruit new faculty members,” he said in an email.

Downsizing dilemma
Retired English literature professor Edward Tayler was grandfathered into the old policy. Still, he said, he will keep the new policy in mind when telling prospective faculty members about Columbia.

“Current policies would perhaps have made me choose Berkeley or Amherst over Columbia when I first went on what is fancifully called The Job Market,” Tayler said in an email. “It will certainly figure in any advice I offer to younger colleagues and prospective colleagues.”

Mercer said that when she chose to come to Columbia, she weighed the pros and the cons, including what she assumed would be lifetime housing.

“I come from the University of California. They can help me buy a house there,” she said.

While many professors understand the need to make housing available to new faculty members with children and families, some say their biggest concern with the new policy is the lack of good units for professors to downsize into. Mercer said it’s “ridiculous” to expect a professor to “move into some hole in the wall, out of a very big apartment.”

“It’s one thing to ask people to move, it’s another to ask them to move into a crappy little apartment,” she said. “So it would not seem as outrageous if there were decent smaller apartments for people to move into.”

For Applegate, the prospect of leaving Columbia housing is just as infeasible as downsizing. Even though rent at Columbia housing is significantly lower than most New York City housing, it’s still rising, and Applegate said he can’t see himself testing the market after years receiving a professor’s salary.

“Most of us who retire simply can’t afford an apartment on the open market that approaches what we have in this neighborhood,” he said.

Columbia does have a Housing Assistance Program for those who don’t choose Columbia housing. Faculty members who do not live in University housing are provided with compensation—$22,000 per year for non-tenured faculty members and $40,000 per year for tenured faculty members.

To retire, or not to retire
Applegate isn’t the only professor who thinks the new policy might affect when he retires. With no mandatory retirement age, some are concerned that the new policy will push older professors to postpone retirement, taking up apartments that would otherwise be given to newly hired faculty.

Chalmers said professors might “want to stretch out your employment with the University forever so you don’t have to dig up the mean bucks to buy a new apartment.”

In part to address the housing concerns, Coatsworth created a work group this semester to examine barriers to retirement and to recommend any needed changes in policies, procedures, or resources for retirees.

“We want to make sure that our tenured faculty feel comfortable retiring at the age that they would like to retire, and that … they don’t stay on longer than they would like to because they have worries that they think the University could address but hasn’t,” he said in an interview earlier this semester.

Some professors think the housing problems could be solved by easing the pressure on faculty housing stock. Chalmers, for instance, noted that Columbia has already extended the Housing Assistance Program through June 30, 2013.

However, he acknowledged, apartments in New York could cost millions, and the supplements may not be enough.

“One way out is if they build more housing,” he said. “With Manhattanville, it’s a possibility that they might insert some faculty housing there. But that is a very expensive and long-term goal.”

Applegate thinks the administration still has time to change the housing policy.

“I would wager a fairly large amount of money that this policy will be modified in the next couple of years,” he said. “You can’t write down policies that contain powerful disincentives to retire.”

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