Approximately 11 percent (43 of 406) of the College's full professors are women, a number that places Harvard ahead of Yale and the University of Michigan. But Brown, Columbia, Princeton and Stanford all have better records, although only by a percentage point or two.

Junior Faculty

Harvard does better on the associate professor level, with 34 percent (24 of 71) being women.

While Brown's 42 percent far outpaces Harvard's numbers, Harvard has more female associate professors than do a number of other universities. Female associate professors at Columbia and Stanford hover around 28 percent, Princeton has 30 percent and Yale and the University of Michigan are a point below Harvard, at 33 percent.

However, the progress Harvard has made on the associate professor level is not sustained on the assistant professor level.

Harvard's level of female assistant professors is just 30 percent. Brown, Columbia, Princeton, Stanford, the University of Michigan and Yale all top Harvard, some by as much as eight percentage points.

Critics charge that if Harvard was utilizing the Ph.D. pool, as Bolker argues it should, the number of assistant professors would be higher because of the larger pool of female candidates coming out of graduate schools today.

Searching for Women

The tenure process currently has several steps to insure qualified women candidates are considered, according to Marjorie Garber, associate dean for affirmative action. At the beginning of the tenure process, a department must turn in a short list of the candidates being considered.

Departments then request letters about can didates from those in their field. The respondents are asked if there are any candidates of significant caliber who have not been included on the short list.

"We do...ask that [departments] address the question of women and minorities," McCarthy says. "If there were no women or minorities on the short list, why not? If there was a woman and/or a minority on the short list and he or she was not the candidate, in what way does he or she compare with the candidate who was put forward?"

"This is something that is critical," he adds.

In addition, McCarthy says Garber works with departments that are compiling lists of candidates and helps to ensure qualified women and minorities are considered for the job.

The College has instituted a number of policies calculated to help working parents and make it possible for more women to become professors and develop their own research, McCarthy says.

"The parental leave policy and the parental extensions of contracts has helped and it certainly has sent a message that Harvard and the FAS are more welcoming to women or to junior faculty who want to have a career and a family," McCarthy says.