"When you're dealing with important aspects ofpeople's lives, a bit more information would be agood think," he says. "The entire final part ofthe procedures could have almost been aboutsomeone else."
Pedersen also says there is a "lack of clarity"in the process.
Last fall, the Committee on the Status of Womenreleased a report on women in the social sciences.Among other things, it recommended the socialscience departments make a written explanation ofthe tenure process available to junior faculty.
And Masten, in his letter-to-the-editor lastmonth, leveled harsh criticism at the ambiguitiesof the system.
"Are there other undisclosed criteria Harvarduses in making determinations of tenure," heasked, "as opposed to, or supplementing, therecord of scholarly work and teaching?"
Reforming the Process
Despite these reproaches, senior and juniorfaculty acknowledge that there have been moreinternal promotions in recent years.
In the Government department, six associateprofessors received tenure in the last five years.Losick also says there have been more internalpromotions in the Biology department recently.
And Epps says it seems as if Harvard has beentrying to combat the perception that internalpromotions are impossible.
"There's a group of young scholars who havecome up from within the ranks of Harvard and haveattained tenure," he says.
Still, he adds that there are some "deservingpeople" who inevitably will be hurt by theprocess.
"I'm not going to be as naive or as arrogant asto think that everyone gets what [they] deserve,"he says.
But Shepsle says the University must not waverfrom its rigorous selection process.
"It would shortchange our students [to stopcomparing people to outside candidates via the'blind letter']," he says. "The responsible thingto do is to maintain that standard. We are agentsfor the future generations of students."
--David A. Fahrenthold and Andrew K. Mandelcontributed to the reporting of this story.