Since 1989, Faculty committees have been bending their brains to find the financial answer to a law which allows professors to remain at work indefinitely. Now the legal deadline has passed, and the University is still seeking a solution.

When Professor of Biology Ernest E. Williams reached the age of 70 in 1980, he retired; he had no choice.

For Williams, the loss of contact with students came too soon. "I've been reconciled to my operations at the moment, but I'd like to have contact with students," says Williams, who is now an emeritus professor. "I was interested in students and liked them, and frankly they keep us young."

Since January 1, however, when federal law made mandatory retirement illegal, professors like Williams have faced a choice about whether to retire at 70 or even at all.

And while the new law brings more opportunity for professors considering their futures in academic life, it also brings the possibility of an aging faculty, of a financial drain on University resources and of limited tenure openings for rising junior faculty.

Harvard has fought to answer such concerns with nonfinancial benefits offered to retired professors, but an ongoing University wide benefits review has failed to come up with a financial solution in time for the January 1 legal deadline.

Such a financial solution could have a major effect--far more than the nonfinancial benefits--on people's retirement decisions.

"Of course the financial piece of it will only be part of the calculus people will use in deciding to retire, but it's an important part of it," says Assistant Dean for Academic Planning Joseph J. McCarthy.

Health care--which, adminstrators say, is very generous in Harvard's package--is a major concern for professors nearing retirement, says Reisinger Professor of Slavic Literature Jurij Striedler, who is considering emeritus status.

"An emphasis should be on guaranteeing retired professors and retired people at Harvard for medical care," he says. "That is a problem care," he says. "That is a problem why sometimes professors who would like to go into retirement hesitate to go."

A University-wide committee chaired by Provost Jerry R. Green has been mulling the problems of health care and benefits packages since he became provost, and various Faculty committees on retirement have existed since 1989.

But while other institutions like the University of Chicago have initiated benefits changes to push faculty toward retirement, Harvard still deliberates about what to do.

The Chicago solution, a lump-sum payment to encourage early retirement, is not the best solution of Harvard and may be illegal, says McCarthy.

But Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles says some modification in Harvard's retirement benefits and health plan must occur for the sake of the University's finances, not just to encourage retirement.

"We do not know yet if or how such benefits will be modified, but some changes will probably be necessary," says Knowles. "University-wide, we are spending more in benefits than we are paying into the benefits pool."