A Harvard panel discussing problems in promotion and tenure yesterday agreed that the tenure system in the United States is in a precarious position.

Speaking before an audience of 25 at the Graduate School of Education, Blenda Wilson, associate dean of the Graduate School of Education, said, "The tenure system in this country is truly in trouble. The declining student enrollment will be directly linked to the number of faculty at the institutions across the country."

The costs of tenuring faculty have increased because of a new law raising the retirement age, inflation and the rising cost of living, Wilson added.

"I don't think we can support older tenured faculty at the expense of younger educators, as well as women and minorities" she said.

Women and minorities are not being guaranteed high posts at universities because affirmative action programs are "impotent," Nancy Randolph, special assistant to President Bok, said yesterday.

"I still vote for affirmative action because it is a tool that surfaces the trouble even if it doesn't solve the problem," Randolph added.

Present social and economic conditions have stopped all but the most determined or foolhardy women from academic careers, Randolph said. She added there would be a "vanishing pool of women" professors available in the '80s.

Patricia A. Graham, professor of Education, and Greg Jackson, professor of Education, also spoke on the panel sponsored by the Colloquium Board.