At the Business School, a retiring faculty member is encouraged to retire before age 68 with a bonus of up to twice a faculty member's salary--also in the six-figure range--depending on age.

The bonus is paid over two years, however, so no faculty member could receive more than his or her salary as a bonus in one year, Hayes says.

The SPH's payment stands out on University tax returns because it is a lump sum, not paid over two years, and because the SPH faces financial obstacles that the Business School--one of the more affluent areas of the University--does not.

In an interview last week, Fineberg said an objective formula was avoided because of the different financial situations of each professor. He said that "fairness" to the faculty member is "fundamentally the perspective," and for this reason it was necessary to consider a professor's benefit plan and other factors before calculating a retirement bonus.

Hayes disagreed.

"[Faculty] have a certain amount of freedom to choose those plans, and we don't want the amount paid to faculty members contingent on the plan that they chose to adopt," he said.

Ware said the bonus paid to Salhanick "did not reflect an established school policy on [retirement]. That was an individual case and should not be viewed as a solution or a resolution at the school."

He says that the SPH faculty is comparatively young, and he does not expect the bonus to be seen as a precedent.

Harvard, Inc.

Other older faculty members see a commercialization of academia, with more and more emphasis placed on popular areas of research.

"There are bandwagons in research," says Richard Levins, 67, Rock professor of population sciences in the faculty of public health. "It's safest to apply for funding for research that is popular and that gives results in a short amount of time."

Levins, who is also in the Department of Population and International Health, has changed offices several times.

Older, tenured faculty with established reputations have the freedom and interest to pursue the dark horse areas of research.

To a University concerned with money, however, what serves academia may not be seen as practical. Outside funding--which is harder to get for less popular areas of research--subsidizes the administration's operating budget.

"The faculty may have their own salary support, but the schools are not in a position to underwrite the costs...associated with running a large laboratory," said James H. Ware, acting dean of the School of Public Health.