"One of the reasons we are very cautious is that our faculty generally spend 35 years here," she adds of Harvard's ability to hire and keep outstanding scholars.

The tenure process at Harvard certainly reflects that caution. While it draws praise for it's care and thoroughness, it is also criticized by many as ponderous and complex.

"The Harvard process is very, very slow," says Leo Damrosch, chair of the English and American Literature and Language department. "The upshot...is it takes close to two years to get an offer made. All of the humanities are frustrated by that."

"It's not that any piece of the process is bad," Damrosch explains. "It's nobody's fault, but it can be a problem in recruiting."

The elaborate process of tenuring a professor begins when a department gets permission from Knowles to conduct a search, says Marjorie Garber, associate dean of the FAS for affirmative action.

From that point, the position is advertised and the department makes up a short list of candidates. Those on the short list may or may not have expressed interest in the position.

Next, the candidate is usually invited to Harvard to give a lecture, which department faculty and students can attend. (These lectures are frequently not well publicized to students, although some departments make a practice of notifying undergraduates of upcoming lectures, administrators say.)

Then, leading scholars outside the University are asked to write "blind letters," which assess all of the candidates on the short list without being told which is currently being favored.

When a minimum of twelve "blind letters" have been gathered, the senior faculty of the department vote on the recommendation.

If the candidate gets the department's nod, a dossier or "case statement" is prepared, which serves as a collection of a candidate's work and recommendations.

"I was asked to provide student evaluations of my courses," says Professor of the History of Science Mario Biagioli, who joined Harvard's faculty this fall.

Biagioli said most of his case statement was completed by the department.

The inch-think dossiers must contain a statement of departmental need, letters from every senior faculty member in the department, a description of the search procedure and reports on the scholastic achievements and teaching skills of the candidate.

The dossiers then go to the nine FAS deans who deal with academic affairs and undergraduate education. This group verifies that all the necessary information has been compiled.

Occasionally, a department will have difficulty assembling enough information, especially for the report on teaching.