Document 19

excerpt from The Boston Globe, June 2, 1998, p. A-14

Tenure System Comes under Fire

. . .

The Harvard faculty of the future takes shape every Wednesday morning in a conference room in University Hall. Under a portrait of architect Charles Bulfinch, Knowles and staff take stock of their courtships of the world's best minds.

In an era of two-career couples, they realize that recruiting isn't as simple as it used to be. Have they helped find a job for one scholar's spouse, a school for a second's children, a low-interest mortgage for a third? Are they offering enough lab space to a scientist, enough graduate students to a humanist?

Such perks only sweeten what is still one of the most desirable jobs in academia. According to Knowles, nearly 70 percent of Harvard job offers are accepted. Tenured Harvard professors enjoy brilliant colleagues and students, vast libraries, six-figure salaries supplemented by consulting work, a bully pulpit on talk shows, op-ed pages, and congressional committees, and near-total job security. They may be fired only for "grave misconduct or neglect of duty." No wonder Harvard professors rarely quit, not even economist Robert Barro, who wavered this spring before rejecting a lucrative offer from Columbia.

"There's nothing more important than drawing here the very best faculty we can identify," Knowles says.

. . .