Emeritus Faculty

In addition to the University Policy (F14-2 [pdf]) which provides details on emeritus status, this page provides information for SJSU faculty who are interested in emeritus faculty status. Emeritus status is not automatically conferred upon retirement.  Faculty need to apply.  When review of the application is completed, faculty receive a letter from the President with their decision.

Emeritus status enables faculty to retain their SJSU credentials (ID) which gives them access to their SJSU email account and all other faculty resources at SJSU—and free parking on campus. The information below is organized by categories which faculty typically fall into at the point they retire and want to apply for Emeritus Status.  

Please check our FAQ page or direct questions to:

Provost’s Office: Erin Garcia at 408-924-2404 or by email at erin.garcia@sjsu.edu 
University Personnel: Remie Bontrager at 408-924-3737 or by email at remie.bontrager@sjsu.edu

• Retiring Tenured Faculty (not entering FERP)

  • In your final semester, you may initiate a request for Emeritus status by completing the Emeritus Faculty Recommendation Form (via Docusign).  Before you fill out the form, have on hand the following information:

    • Years of service (service credit)
    • Effective retirement date
    • Date exiting FERP (if applicable)
    • Executive Assistant to your College Dean (name & email)
    • Your College Dean (name & email)

• FERP Faculty

  • While participating in the Faculty Early Retirement Program (FERP), you are considered to be regular members of the faculty and therefore are not yet eligible for emeritus status.

    One month in advance of your FERP exit date, you may apply for emeritus status.  You may initiate a request for Emeritus status by completing the Emeritus Faculty Recommendation Form (via Docusign).  Before you fill out the form, have on hand the following information:

    • Years of service (service credit)
    • Effective retirement date
    • Date exiting FERP (if applicable)
    • Executive Assistant to your College Dean (name & email)
    • Your College Dean (name & email)

• Retiring Lecturers

  • As the University Policy F14-2 [pdf] explains, Emeritus standing shall normally be conferred on non-tenured faculty upon retirement from the University who meet the following conditions: 

    1. They have been employed for a minimum of ten years. Those years shall be continuous except for leaves consistent with the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
    2. They have been approved by a Department personnel committee.

    In your final semester you may initiate a request for Emeritus status by asking your department’s personnel committee to review your request for Emeritus Status as outlined in the University Policy linked above. The process then follows these next steps:

    • The department personnel committee sends a recommendation memo to your College Dean;
    • The memo is uploaded to the DocuSign form by the Dean’s Executive Assistant; and  
    • The Dean signs the form to move it forward to the remaining reviewers.

• Post-Retirement Separated Faculty

  • This is a category for faculty who retired in the past but did not at that time request Emeritus status.  If less than a year has transpired since your retirement, you may request Emeritus status using the process outlined above for the category from which you retired from.

    If more than a year has transpired, you no longer have an active SJSU email account so will not be able to access the DocuSign form.  Instead, you would:

    Contact the Provost’s office (Erin Garcia; erin.garcia@sjsu.edu), who will route your request as appropriate:

    • If a lecturer, the request (including a memo from your department’s personnel committee) will be routed to your Dean’s Executive Assistant (EA), who will then be responsible for routing the form to the correct people who need to review the application.
    • If not a lecturer, a DocuSign form will be routed directly to your personal email address and you can initiate the review process as noted in the tenured faculty section above.