College Insurrection recently published a post about college professors who aren’t retiring. Now one professor from Penn. State is stepping down and he wants other retirement age professors to follow suit.

Colleen Flaherty of Inside Higher Ed reports.

Retiring His ‘Boomer Butt’

Study after study shows that baby-boomer professors aren’t retiring. Between the hits their 401ks took during the recession and fears of stepping off into an intellectual abyss, many academics have both financial and personal interest in significantly delaying retirement or rejecting it altogether.

But Philip Schrodt says that if you’re honest, “You just know when it is time to quit.” And that’s what the former professor of political science at Pennsylvania State University has done, after 40 years in academe (and 31 years as a tenured professor). A day after receiving his last paycheck from Penn State, Schrodt took to his blog to explain why he decided to retire at 62.

The post, called “Going Feral! Or ‘So Long and Thanks for All the Fish,’ ” (the latter part a reference to the Douglas Adams book The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy) is funny and biting in its critique of academe and professors of his generation who have lost their passion for their jobs but are hanging on to their paychecks. It’s also attracting lots of attention for its unorthodox take on tenure, at least from a tenured professor.

But first, Schrodt’s idea of retirement isn’t sitting around.

“On the contrary, I’m rather busy at the moment, and intend to remain so for the foreseeable future, even if I’m not entirely convinced of the assertion that one of my projects will be funded ‘in perpetuity,’ ” he wrote of his plan to become a consultant in semi-retirement. “Rather: ‘I’ve left to pursue other opportunities and get my fat Boomer butt out of the way.’

“Or as I prefer to think of it, ‘going feral.’”