Rising concern about the low numbers of women and minority tenured faculty at Harvard has prompted some students to organize a panel discussion.

The panel will bring together administration and faculty to air question and concerns about the tenure process.

Recent tenure concerns have involved two associate professors in government, Jean C. Oi and Jennifer A. Widner, which were both denied tenure despite having been endorsed by their departments. Final endorsement power rests with the presidents, currently Albert Carnesale, who makes tenure decisions with input from an ad-hoc committee.

The panel will be held Tuesday, December 6 at 8:00 p.m. in Science Center B. Five students groups are co-sponsoring the event: the Committee for Women and Minority Faculty Tenure, Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS), the Institute of Politics Advisory Committee, the Minority Student Alliance (MSA) and the Harvard Foundation Academic Affairs Committee.

At Harvard, 10.8 percent of tenured professors are women. That figure is less than the 22.8 percent average nationwide, according to the Boston Globe.

Among Ivy League schools, only Yale has a lower rate of tenuring women.

Although efforts were made to seek minority panelists, scheduling conflicts prevented otherwise interested faculty members from participating, organizers said.

The five panelists are all women senior faculty: Seyla Benhabib, chair of the Committee on the Status of Women; Marjorie Garber, associate dean for affirmative action; Susan R. Suleiman, chair of women's studies; sociology professor Mary C. Waters; and Irene Winter, chair of the fine arts department.

Organizers said the panel would not focus on the question of whether or not women and minorities should hold more senior positions at Harvard. Instead, the discussion will focus on the tenure process itself.

"We felt that students and other members of Harvard's community should become educated on the tenure process because we're in a position to ask certain questions that current junior and perhaps senior faculty members cannot ask," said Sarah S. Song '96, a principal organizer of the event.

Song said junior faculty members have been reluctant to speak up about the tenure process.

"From my discussions with various faculty members--35 in the last three weeks--it seems that the consensus of the junior faculty is that they could not speak. It was a conflict of interest." Song said.

"I don't blame junior faculty for not discussing it in a public way because it is a way of sticking their necks out," Waters said. "Junior faculty are in a tough position because they can't question the process since they want to go though it."

The panel was originally scheduled for the Institute of Politics (IOP) at the Kennedy School of Government.

But "there were certain reservations by panel members in having a discussion in such a political forum as the IOP," Song said. "The sentiment was that the atmosphere was too politically charged and a true discussions might not be had."