University of Toronto professor Thomas Pangle believes he has more than five years of teaching and research left in him -- and he's heading to Texas to prove it.
Prof. Pangle, who turns 60 in November and is regarded as one of North America's leading historians of political thought, said he was concerned about Ontario's mandatory-retirement law, which forces workers to leave their jobs when they turn 65. "It would have made it a lot harder to move if there was no mandatory retirement," Prof. Pangle said yesterday.
Although the new Ontario government has indicated it might scrap mandatory retirement as early as this spring, negotiations for Prof. Pangle's move have been in the works for two years.
So, come this summer and after spending 25 years in Toronto, he and his family will pack their bags as he takes up a new post at the University of Texas at Austin. Prof. Pangle said he has agreed to the offer, and is expected to sign the papers by tomorrow. His departure will be a loss for Canada. Prof. Pangle has won teaching awards and written several books on political philosophy, including Political Philosophy and the God of Abraham.
In hiring Prof. Pangle, the University of Texas beat out Harvard University and a counteroffer from Toronto.
Prof. Pangle said he was attracted to the university because of its growing political science department. He will be involved in selecting new professors for the program. "I'm joining a department that is already strong, but there's growing and building taking place there," he said.
In recent years, the United States has been able to woo Canadian professors with more money and larger grants for research. But fears about mandatory retirement, especially in Ontario, are also playing a part in enticing academics to the United States. Even within Canada, Ontario professors, for example, are looking for jobs in Quebec to escape mandatory retirement.
There is no law in Canada that requires a person to retire at 65. But many workplaces, including universities, have collective agreements or company policies that specify the normal retirement date for workers as 65.
Most provinces protect over-65 workers in their labour or human-rights legislation, but Ontario, British Columbia, Saskatchewan, Newfoundland and Labrador and the federal government still allow it.
Prof. Pangle earned his PhD at the University of Chicago and taught at Yale University before coming to Toronto in 1979. He was born and raised in Gouverneur, N.Y., but said it was a hard decision to leave Canada. "I was really planning to spend the rest of my life here in Toronto until about two years ago when I got this call from Texas and they started to make this argument [about mandatory retirement]" he said.
Michael Doucet, president of the Ontario Confederation of University Faculty Associations, said he's waiting for the provincial government to scrap mandatory retirement, so that the country doesn't lose any more professors.
"This is a looming threat for Ontario so long as we have mandatory retirement," Mr. Doucet said. "We are likely to squander some of the province's intellectual capital if we don't eliminate mandatory retirement."
Pekka Sinervo, dean of arts and science at the University of Toronto, said the issue of mandatory retirement has been a concern among faculty.
"It is an issue. We work hard to make U of T an attractive place for students and scholars," he said. "We're always sorry to see distinguished scholars leave."