Retirement policies and possible effects on teacher shortages were examined. Information was obtained concerning: a 5-year summary of faculty retirements by age, the age distribution of each institution's full-time faculty by academic area, and changes over the past 5 years in personnel policies and procedures in response to anticipated faculty shortages or as part of an ongoing management system. A total of 12 to 20 institutions provided data on faculty retirement ages and age distributions and fields of full-time faculty. These data were used to make projections of faculty retirements for 1987 through 1994 and 1994 through the year 2000. Twenty-four institutions provided information on recently initiated changes in personnel policies. Three modal years of retirement were found: ages 65, 66, and 70. Across the 5-year period, about two-thirds of the faculty had retired by age 66. The data suggest that factors other than the age of mandatory retirement seem to be more instrumental in determining the average age of retirement. There were substantially younger faculty in several of the growth fields of the 1970s and 1980s, including business, computer science and information science, allied health and health sciences, law, and communications. Nineteen references are cited. (SW)