The university professor is a reservoir of intellectual energy that cannot be reduced to a job measured by an administrative duration or defined by a formal end date. Their true impact does not stop at teaching hours nor is it confined within the limits of a position; rather, it extends wherever experience accumulates, methodology takes root, and the capacity to shape scientific direction emerges within and beyond the university.

When progress is understood as a long-term project centered on building the human being, developing awareness, and producing knowledge, the university professor becomes one of its major pillars—not as a mere holder of a degree or title, but as a productive mind that bridges idea and evidence, transforming knowledge from memorized material into an active intellect that interprets reality, proposes solutions, and charts pathways.

From this perspective, retirement in the academic environment should not be seen as a withdrawal from influence, but as a conscious transition from routine burdens to more specialized roles of greater value and broader impact. Advanced universities recognize that scholarly contribution is not measured by age, but by intellectual vitality, mental activity, and continued productivity and innovation. Therefore, they retain active professors as long as they are capable of contributing, because their expertise is not an organizational luxury but a form of intellectual capital whose impact renews itself when properly invested within a sound institutional vision.

The true value of a university professor is reflected in their ability to provide deep supervision of researchers, shape academic standards, evaluate research, guide scientific inquiry, and connect the university with societal needs. It is also evident in their contributions to program design, curriculum development, quality assurance, mentoring new academics, and transferring expertise that cannot be fully captured in books or training courses, but is acquired through years of scholarly practice, methodological discipline, and continuous engagement with the evolving questions of knowledge and the transformations of reality.

When a society wastes such expertise merely because a certain age has been reached, it loses a valuable intellectual resource that is not easily replaced, creating a rupture that weakens scholarly accumulation and delays institutional maturity. But when it invests in it wisely, it ensures continuity of awareness, reinforcement of quality, and acceleration of progress through experienced minds still capable of contribution, construction, and igniting the great questions within the university’s intellect. In this way, the university becomes a strategic mind for society, and the university professor becomes a living reference—one that does not fade with the end of a job title, but is renewed through the value of its impact and the depth of its mission.

Prof. Dr. Ayed Mohammed Al-Zahrani

Secretary-General of the Swiss Association of Arab Academics and Scientists