IF ANY doubts remain that Harvard's tenure system is in serious need of an overhaul, they should be put to rest by the recent news about the English Department.

Three junior members of the department said that they are considering teaching positions at other schools. Two others have already accepted outside offers and will leave Cambridge by September.

The potential departure of one-third of the junior members of the English Department is shameful. And the fact that Harvard continues to wink at such crises without acknowledging the systemic problems at their root is evidence of the torpor which has taken hold at the top of this institution.

THE young scholars' stated reasons for considering fleeing Harvard are very sensible.

Looking around, they see a department that has promoted only one junior professor from within Harvard in the last 26 years.

They see Joseph A. Boone, a promising young scholar of the English and American novel whose tenure bid was nixed by the English Department last spring. He now has several tenure offers from other top schools.

They see Deborah A. Nord, an expert on the Victorian novel who last spring did the nearly impossible--gaining the endorsement of the English Department for tenure at the University. In a shocking move, President Derek C. Bok and an ad-hoc committee of outside scholars rejected her for a senior position.

They see an administration that heaps them with advising, teaching and committee responsibilities while at the same time demanding that they churn out works of global eminence at age 30.

In sum, they see a University that treats them as day laborers for eight years before summarily jettisoning them without any sense of remorse.

THE oft-repeated defense for the University's tenure system is that Harvard will only give lifetime appointments to academics who have climbed to the top of their fields.

All the costs inherent in such a system--high turnover among junior professors, disregard for teaching ability in the tenure process and low morale among young scholars--are said to be necessary to maintain Harvard's pre-eminence.

Unfortunately, the current tenure system no longer can even maintain Harvard's excellence by its own definition. In fact, in many fields--such as English--the system does just the opposite.

A large part of the problem is that the system works on a lowest-common-denominator approach. The only people to receive tenure are those who all the aging members of the department can support as being at the top of the field.

"At the top of the field" as defined by the senior members of a department often means "respected and safe" in practice. In a politicized field like English, the University rarely takes a gamble on a talented young academic on the cutting edge of scholarship.

Instead, a department will typically sputter along, only tenuring traditional, established scholars who conform to some arbitrary standard of "excellence." Meanwhile, more daring departments at other schools will race ahead.