Abstract

This chapter focuses on retirement from the lens of school psychology faculty members, with a focus on retirement as a process or developmental transition rather than a discrete event. We drew information from past literature on the topic of academic retirement, and we conducted interviews related to retirement planning and decision making with eight school psychology professors who are retired or approaching retirement. We discuss activities that lead to fulfilling and engaging retirement, domains that influence decision-making, as well as strategies that can be used to enhance the well-being and success experienced at this career stage. We present information about the phases of retirement and the transitions in place, time, relationships, identities, and priorities that those transitions entail. We include summaries and direct quotes from interviews throughout the chapter, and end with a message that retirement planning can never start too early. This may be the first documentation of the retirement process among professors of school psychology, and we have highlighted themes and noted recommendations to inform the successful retirement decision making for other school psychologists working in university settings.