The Kennedy School of Government's lone tenured woman professor will be nominated to a position in the Department of Health and Human Services, according to recent media reports.

The Clinton administration intends to submit the name of Weiner Professor of Social Policy Mary Jo Bane to the Congress for the post of Assistant Secretary of HHS, the Boston Globe reported.

Bane is currently on leave from Harvard, serving as New York State's commissioner of social services. Should she be nominated and confirmed to a post in the Clinton administration--a likelihood despite problems with paying Social Security taxes for domestic help--the Kennedy School would be left with no female tenured professors when her two-year leave expires next year.

Students said yesterday that although they were excited about Bane's appointment, they feared her departure would only worsen the atmosphere for female students and faculty members.

Second-year student Laurel MacLaren, a member of the Coalition for Diversity, a student group which seeks to increase diversity among K. School faculty, said Bane's departure would make it more difficult for the school to recruit women.

MacLaren said women, faculty and students consider Bane a mentor and her departure would leave only junior faculty members as role models.

Kennedy School spokesperson Steven R. Singer said he was reluctant to confirm that Bane would be leaving after her two-year leave expires.

"I think it's premature for me to talk about what she will be doing years in the future," Singer said.

But Singer said if Bane does accept Clinton administration position, the school's policy for increasing diversity will remain unchanged.

"Regardless of what happens to [Bane], the Kennedy School is committed to recruiting women and minority faculty," he said.

Singer also said it is not the policy of the Kennedy School to "set quotas for faculty positions. Each position is a case by case search for an individual person," he said.

But Beth M. Arman, another second-year student and sa member of the coalition's steering committee, said if Bane indeed does not return next year the atmosphere at the school will deteriorate.

"It's a problem for everyone, not just women," she said.

Arman said many women are reluctant to accept faculty positions at the school because of the male-dominated atmosphere. The departure of the only female with tenure would only worsen the situation, she said.

Arman and other students on the coalition are frustrated with the administration's current performance on faculty diversity.

"They say they are trying and I'm sure they are, but change is moving a lot slower than students would like," she said.

The University's 1991 Affirmative Action Plan set a federally-mandated goal of three female tenured professors at the Kennedy School by 1992, but the number has remained at one. There are more than 20 professors with tenure at the K-School.

Sally Tyler, co-chair of the student group Women's Caucus, said she hoped searches to replace Bane or Professor of Public Policy David T. Ellwood, who many also depart for the Department of Health and Human Services, would yield at least one female candidate.

MacLaren said she believes the impending departures of the two Kennedy School professors provide an opportunity for the school to manifest its commitment to increase diversity.

"I would hope that [the Kennedy School] would make it a real priority to get women and minorities into those positions," she said