Previous organizational efforts of both groups had been hampered by an extraordinarily high turnover rate in their ranks. Corporation appointees are constantly moving on to other institutions following unsuccessful tenure bids, and salary-and-wage employees inevitably seek positions with local corporations whose starting salaries and promotion scales are considerably more attractive than those offered by Harvard.

So the organization resolved to "make its purpose general enough to include everyone and exclude no one." And, the diversity of the women who have chosen to affiliate themselves with the organization may prove to be its ultimate strength.

Many of the women who have attended its night-time meetings are in their 50s and 60s. As Margaret A. Mills, president of the Graduate Women's Organization, has noted, the meetings have not been of the "general rag-tag graduate students pissed off at something" variety.

The founding charter of the organization calls for a flexible structure that would enable it to function as a general association for interested individuals and as a clearinghouse for already constituted groups.

Its general objectives include:

* seeking equity with male counterparts in compensation and job classification;

* working actively for the promotion of women employees and the appointment of women to jobs now held only by men;

* seeking improved day-care facilities;

* increasing Harvard's responsiveness to the capacities and needs of long-time women employees;

* creating a staff resources and communications center to serve all women employed by Harvard, and all smaller organizations of women employed by the University; and,

* publicizing all laws concerning the employment of women.

The last of these objectives alludes to the insistence by the women that they have some sort of input into the creation of future affirmative action proposals.

And although the University is not required to divulge the contents of its affirmative action plan until after it has been accepted by HEW and has become binding University policy, the women have long maintained that the Administration might profit from suggestions by women employees.

The women have established a sliding scale of dues that is intended to reflect each individual member's commitment to the organization. Their resolution suggests that a women who could not afford to volunteer time might "accordingly make larger cash contributions."

The organization will undoubtedly stress its visibility: "Harvard is very impressed by persistence," one member of the association noted. And although some women have suggested that their goals can only be realized if the organization moves as a union with strike power, it is unlikely that the organization will proceed in this manner.

The issue of the organization's status in the University remains unresolved. However, if the group obtains the free office space for which it is hoping, and can effectively raise the funds that will enable the hiring of an executive coordinator who is familiar with the University's idiosyncracies, it is very likely that we will be hearing from Women Employed at Harvard when school resumes in the Fall, and perhaps even sooner.