If they aren't mentoring graduate students, they lose graduate faculty status.

The places where I have worked and studied do not carry much dead wood. They have mechanisms.

With that said, I think there is a horrible flaw in that report. The flaw is in the ignorant assumption that someone who is 65 (or older) is not productive or valuable. Why would we want a smaller age gap between students and faculty, why is that necessary?

This is a problem not just with academia, but with American society in general. Here in America, we are obsessed with youth. We think only the young have valuable views (when often the opposite is true).

As a result, we miss out on wisdom. We do this in our families, at the workplace, and now in the academy. Other places in the world have better regard for older scholars, workers, and (sadly) family members. I am married into an Asian family, I prefer they way they treat their senior family members to what I've seen from the western families I know.

Concerning where I work, my department head is in his late 60s. I am in my 30s. I have outstanding evaluations every year, yet am striving to be as productive as he is now. And when he speaks, I listen. He's seen much more than I have.

I can only imagine what a 18-year-old student could learn from someone that experienced and that knowledgeable.