With a new student group, an aggressive fundraising campaign and a publicity blitz ranging from campus postering to the pages of the Boston Globe, Radcliffe this month launched a new crusade for female faculty hiring at Harvard.

A Radcliffe alumnae Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard, founded last year at the 1953 and 1958 class reunions, released a report earlier this month critical of Harvard's record and announced several new initiatives to improve the situation.

"You have to start somewhere and do something other than encourage and speak toward a goal," says Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson. "We wanted to do something tangible."

But while professors agree that the University has a problem with hiring female faculty, many say the Radcliffe plans are little more than a symbolic effort.

"They can express and convey information and express their opinions, but that's as far as I'd go," says Thomas N. Bisson, history department chair.

The real hiring problem, some professors say, is in Harvard's com- plex tenure process, which rarely taps junior faculty and tends to favor traditional, well-established candidates.

Despite Radcliffe's much-bally-hooed crusade, only professors in the academic departments, not administrators or alumnae, can really affect tenure decisions.

"We go through an incredibly involved process of who to hire, and committees of interested alumnae aren't really a part of it," says Robert P. Kirshner, chair of the astronomy department.

The Problem

Harvard's percentage of tenured female faculty lags behind those at comparable universities.

Only 8.8 percent of the University's tenured faculty are women, according to the alumnae committee report. That translates 94 women in a pool of 1074 tenured professors.

In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS), the percentage is 10.8, up from 10.1 percent last year and 9.6 percent the year before, according to the University's 1994 affirmative action plan report.

The Harvard percentages are far below the national average of 22.6 percent tenured women in faculties of arts and sciences, according to data compiled by the Boston Globe.

Every Ivy League faculty of arts and sciences except Yale's can boast a higher percentage than Harvard's, according to the Globe. Dartmouth and Brown lead the league with 25 percent and 19.25 percent respectively.

In the last official University tabulation in 1992, Harvard's overall percentage of tenured women ranked below all other comparable schools in the survey, including the Ivies, Duke and Stanford.

University officials and faculty deplore the low percentages.

"It is a crucially important issue and I don't think we've solved the problem," says Associate Dean of the Faculty for Affirmative Action Marjorie Garber.

The problem is particularly acute in the sciences. A 1993 faculty report on the status of women found that female junior professors and graduate students can face institutional barriers in science fields.

"I certainly see it as a problem in my own field," says Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Howard Georgi. "The small number of tenured women in the sciences makes it more difficult to attract undergraduate and graduate women to the sciences."

The Answers?

But while many professors agree the percentage of tenured women is too low, consensus on the issue ends at that point. There is little agreement about how the University could or should address the problem.

Administrators in charge of increasing Harvard's faculty diversity argue that the University is already moving toward gender equality and just needs more time to achieve its goals.

One administrator says, in fact, that the Faculty's tenure rate for women has increased. In the last three years, 22 percent of tenure offers have been to women, while in the three years before that, the rate was just 16 percent, the official says.

"I feel confidant that it's just a matter of time," says Associate Vice President James S. Hoyte '65, who is assistant to the president for affirmative action. "In general I think there's fairness in the process."

Garber, whose job includes urging departments to keep female hiring needs in mind during the tenure process, says she sees progress.

"Harvard's tenure process is very complex so the machinery moves more slowly," she says. "Affirmative action issues are raised at every stage."

Such arguments for patience do not satisfy everyone, however.

Incremental change under the present system is slow. Over the past 11 years, the average annual rate of increase in the Faculty percentage of tenured women was .5, and the rate for the entire University was .4.

Professors say that the appointment process at Harvard still fails to be completely fair and that the University could do more to increase the number of tenured women.

Professor of Sociology Theda Skocpol says Garber and Hoyte are "overly optimistic."

"It's exactly what people have been saying for 15 years," she says. "Once people are in the administration, that's what they always say."

Radcliffe is mounting a crusade to bring women to the faculty, but many say the new plan has little chance of...

The faculty appointment process still does not treat men and women equally, Skocpol says. When departments look for the best faculty, often members do not consider qualified women.

"For a long time, Harvard took the attitude that there weren't enough women of enough quality out there, and that attitude just isn't valid any more," she says. "There's the tendency to see actual or potential weaknesses in women scholars faster than in men.... A lot of young men have been appointed to the ec and government departments. It just doesn't happen as readily for women."

Georgi says women candidates may not always get equal treatment in the tenure process.

"It's so difficult for anyone to get through the process. If there's any tilt away from a woman or a minority it gets magnified in the process," he says. "That's the danger. Some of those very small subconscious tilts still exist."

Harvard's reliance on "blind letters" when making appointments poses a problem for women candidates, says Irene J. Winter, chair of the fine arts department.

In Harvard's tenure process, a department sends out "blind letters" with a list of possible candidates for a position. Experts at other schools respond with their comments about the scholars on the list.

"If you're asking the most established and most age-graded upward they're the people who are the most conservative and the least gender-mixed," Winter says.

"You're privileging their value system at the more conservative end of the age grade. You can do it in terms of quality and quality masks a huge amount of prejudice," she says.

Harvard's administration should do more to urge change at the departmental level, Skocpol says.

"I think that other universities have taken much more active steps at the administration level to encourage departments to come forward with women and minority candidates," she says. "When you're in a situation where Princeton is acting more aggressively than Harvard you can't say that it's something a conservative Ivy League institution can't do. And Princeton is doing more."

Even if the administration takes a stronger advocacy role, however, only the department members can ultimately decide who gets tenure. And some professors say that Harvard will change only when that sacrosanct process changes as well.

"I'd like to see a review of the standing procedures for making senior appointments," Winter says.

Radcliffe's Initiatives

The Radcliffe alumnae committee's report strongly criticizes Harvard's female tenure rates.

Federal law, including civil rights statutes, the Civil Rights Act of 1964, Title IX of the Education Amendment of 1972 and the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1987 all require that Harvard recruit more women, the alumnae report notes.

Harvard's faculty does not reflect the availability of women scholars, according to the alumnae report and Harvard's own affirmative action plan reports. The University underestimates the pool of available women, the alumnae report says, and recruitment efforts and support for women's studies are not sufficient.

The committee sent its conclusions and recommendations to President Neil L. Rudenstine and the University's governing Board of Overseers.

The alumnae call for radical new programs, including substantial additional resources to increase the number of tenured women faculty and mandatory hiring targets for each department with penalties for non-compliance.

Committee members also want departments to consider their own junior faculty for promotion to tenure a practice rare in Harvard's present tenure system.

The alumnae committee, the Radcliffe Alumnae Association and Wilson raised money for a new Bunting Institute fellowship aimed at helping the research work of promising junior faculty members.

The $65,000 raised so far will allow just one junior professor next year to take a leave of absence, without money concerns or a teaching burden. Money has not yet been raised for future years, Wilson says.

Peggy B. Schmertzler '53, who chairs the alumnae committee, says members hope their work will draw a serious response from Rudenstine.

A new Radcliffe student Committee for Women Faculty, founded earlier this month, is also hoping to push female faculty hiring to the administration.

Dramatic steps are necessary to ensure equality for women soon, Schmertzler says.

"Over the past 11 years the increase in the number of tenured women has been .4 percent annually," she says. "At that rate it's going to be 100 years before we have 50 percent tenured women."

"We're asking the president to put his power behind the goal of equality for women and we believe he wants to," she says. "We're hoping we're enabling him to do what he wants to do."

Ineffective

Professors, however, say the Radcliffe committee and students' work will probably have little immediate effect, since alumnae and undergraduates have no voice in tenure decisions.

"There's a million different advocacy groups," says Professor of Economics Claudia Goldin. "They go around with their papers and white placards but that's it. It's not something to be taken very seriously."

No changes in Harvard's appointment process are under consideration at this point, according to Hoyte and Garber.

While some of the committee's proposals are generally right, faculty say, others reveal ignorance of how the tenure process works.

"They sure didn't ask us what we though would be useful," Kirshner says.

Goldin agrees.

"They don't seem to know all that much about the University," she says.

Several professors defended departments' traditional right to make tenure decisions without punishment from above.

"Creating a bunch of rules which you slap on departments isn't very effective," Skocpol says. "It creates a bad relationship."

"I think people in departments know best," says Professor of Chemistry Cynthia M. Friend.

Several say that putting such overwhelming weight on the sex of a candidate could sacrifice quality.

"You have to be careful not to make chromosomes the criteria for appointments," Kirshner says.

But other suggestions from the report would be effective, professors say, though Radcliffe has little power to enforce them.

Allocating additional resources for the recruitment and hiring of women is important, professors say.

"If you have an important woman scholar you should do your best to get her," Friend says.

"It's all a question of motion from the departments," Georgi says. "If there were more financial rewards maybe they would work at it harder."

The alumnae committee's suggestion that departments be encouraged to consider more junior faculty for tenure also drew praise from several faculty members.

"Perhaps we should place more emphasis on how to enhance the chances of junior faculty to do well," Friend says.

"The approach at Harvard is still one of looking for superstars," Skocpol says. "By the time Harvard decides that a woman is a star she may be settled someplace else. That is why bending over backward for junior faculty is so important--they are already here."

But the new Bunting fellowship, which serves just one professor next year, is not the answer, Kirshner says.

"It seems like it would be of no use," he says. "It has very little to do with what scientists really need. What scientists really need is research money. If there were a research fund, that would be helpful."

Indirect Effect

Faculty say the best Radcliffe can hope for from the report is an indirect result.

"It's a starting point, a beginning." Friend says of the Bunting fellowship. "It could have a kind of catalytic effect."

"I would like to see a move for more consideration of the junior faculty," Georgi says. "I think it could have that good collateral effect."

Ultimately, despite the posters, articles and activism, Radcliffe will remain on the sidelines, they say.

"Their role is sort of as a watch dog," Skocpol says. "They can't certainly be involved and won't be involved in the process of tenuring women. They can be active in gathering information about how the situation is changing and not changing and that's what they do."

The alumnae committee's actions may also help those within the University who are trying to change Harvard's policies, some professors say.

"It could be a voice raised in concert with a voice that's raised internally," Winter says.

But the new activists say they are satisfied with such an outside "watch dog" role.

"Our role is to educate and keep the issue to the fore, to encourage the students and younger alumni to be more aware of the issue," Schmertzler says.

"The students and the alumni, are a powerful combined force," she says. "We don't have to be careful what we say. We can be honest and forthright. That gives us a freedom that others who are concerned might not have."Crimson File PhotoProfessor of Chemistry CYNTHIA M. FRIEND is one of the few women tenured in the hard sciences.