Bradley S. Epps, Loeb Associate Professor of the Humanities, shared a bottle of champagne with his class last week to celebrate his tenure appointment in Romance Languages and Literatures.

In an interview, the 39-year-old professor said "the proof is in the pudding" that Harvard's oft-criticized tenure process is changing.

Epps' case was one of several this year that ended happily. But many promising, well-liked young scholars are denied tenure every year, including Jeffrey A. Masten, Gardner Cowles Associate Professor in the Humanities.

In December, President Neil L. Rudenstine refused to grant tenure to Masten, whose promotion the English department had enthusiastically supported. Graduate students, undergraduates and Masten's colleagues here and at other universities expressed shock and outrage.

In a January letter printed in The Crimson, Phillip Brian Harper, associate professor of English at New York University, called the University's tenure procedures "anomalous and increasingly laughable."

Unlike most universities, Harvard is not a tenure-track institution. It has historically proved next-to-impossible for anassistant professor to receive tenure at Harvard.

Many junior faculty members complain thestringent tenure process provides disincentives toteach here, and some department chairs concede ithampers their recruitment efforts. They alsoobject to the secrecy which shrouds the process.

"It's important for hiring of junior facultythat people feel that they have some kind ofshot," says Professor of History Susan G.Pedersen, who chairs the Faculty's StandingCommittee on the Status of Women.

But Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles saysemphatically that the system does not need to bechanged simply because junior faculty are rarelypromoted.

The University's main goal, he says, must be toprovide support to junior faculty, so that theyhave "the best chance of a career opportunity hereor elsewhere."

According to Knowles' annual budget letter tothe Faculty, more than 40 percent of tenuredappointments have come from internal promotions inthe last three years, compared with under 30percent in the previous three-year period.

Still, Pedersen is not alone in saying "It'stime for the University to look at thisseriously."

A Unique System

Harvard's tenure process is unique in manyways.

Before appointing a scholar to tenure, mostuniversities, such as the University of Californiaat Berkeley, seek to determine that the nominee'squalifications meet their institutionalrequirements.

By contrast, a person considered for tenure atHarvard must be judged to be the leading scholaravailable in a particular field.