Harvard does use some of these tactics, and its negotiations regularly include research start-up costs and moving expenses. Rosovsky also writes of helping to get professors children into leading private schools.

But these weapons form just the tip of the iceberg. Most negotiating is done in private sessions with deans and other officials, and professors are reluctant to talk about behind the scenes offers.

Schools are often forced to make double tenure offers to dual career academic families or to find a job for a spouse. In 1989, the History of Science Department extended a tenure Charles E. Rosenberg. At the time, he said that his acceptance would hinge on a Harvard offer for his wife, Penn history professor Drew G. Faust. The couple eventually turned down the offer for other reasons, But a key part of the negotiation process was clearly the hiring of spouses.

Peter L. Galison '77, a historian of 20th century physics, was tenured last year by the History Department. His acceptance was contingent of Harvard's finding a job for his wife, who is a professor of fine arts. She received a post at Boston University.

More recently, incoming Graduate School of Education Dean Linda Darling Hammond took her name out of consideration for the deanship after initially being offered the post because her husband had not been given a position. she later accepted the job after he was offered a lectureship at the Kennedy School.

And still outstanding is a tenure offer to Duke professor Naomi Schor, a specialist in 19th century French literature. Schor's acceptance, say officials, may be based on Harvard's finding an endowed chair for her, but also on finding a position in the Cambridge area for her husband Paol Keineg, an adjunct associate professor of Romance studies at Duke.

The adjunct program at Duke allows the university to provide teaching positions for spouses who might not be qualified for full faculty positions. The option doesn't exit at most Ivy League institution, and that gives Duke a clear advantage in rataining faculty members like Schor.

Knowles says that this year's crop of recruitments has been fairly successful There have been 15 acceptances, with five offers still outstanding.

Stanton Professor of the First Amendment Frederick Schauer is one professor who did decide to accept a Harvard offer, and has just finished his second year at the Kennedy School But his was not an extremely quick or easy decision.

"At some point, when you're senior enough, the only respectable form of a job search is waiting for the phone to ring," says Schauer, a specialist in constitutional law with a sub specialty in free speech, the freedom of the press and the First Amendment.

Schauer received that first phone call, which he calls "ego management," The callers--usually department heads--tell the professors that there is a considerable interest in hiring someone for their departments. What the potential employer is saying, says Schauer, is "We want you to enter a competition, and youmight win."

Harvard academic departments begin searches bysending out a "blind letter" which allows facultyfrom other universities to comment on a number ofscholars in the field without knowing the specificperson under consideration.

The professor being courted is also invited toHarvard at least once before being offered aposition, either to give a lecture or to hold avisiting professorship, and also to get to knowthe Cambridge area better.

"The process is so elaborate, and the schoolhas so much information about the person at thistime, that it provides a significant amount ofinvestment in the person saying yes," saysSchauer.

But the relentless pursuit of the "best personfor the job" sometimes means that the Universitydisregards important factors such as dual careerneeds in its search, and scholars who are simplynot "movable" end up being targeted by recruiters.