"A lot of us are concerned that we not be faddish about our faculty appointments," he says. "With the new flexibility, we worry that there will be great pressure on the dean to increase faculty in those departments that are `hot.'"

For example, Sociology, Biochemistry and Economics are growing fields that Bossert expects to burgeon at the expense of such Harvard departments as Classics and Folklore and Mythology.

But many professors, in particular the department heads who Spence has enlisted in his agenda for change, view the new system as a boon to their departments.

Government Department Chair Robert D. Keohane, who says he prepared a nine-page memo on the new system for the department's faculty, argues that the change is crucial to any attempt to improve the lot of junior faculty at Harvard.

"It gives junior faculty a fair chance to compete for tenure," he says. "We don't want to be in the position of having to say that while you're work is wonderful we just don't have a spot for you."

Keohane says that hiring decisions will be made on a more equitable, and less ad hoc, basis with the new system. "We are always going to have competition--it's very difficult to get openings for new fields," he says. "But now we can have competition on a more straightforward and intellectual basis."

But Psychology Department head Brendan A. Maher says the jury is still out on the new system. "I suspect it will take a while to understand what all this means. When the old system's been around for so long, it becomes ingrained in people's consciousness."

At least, there seems to be broad-based consensus that the old Graustein system had major flaws. And that in itself is a major achievement for an 800-plus member faculty that is almost always resistant to change.