The controversy surrounding the promotion of junior faculty is not unique to the Astronomy Department, of course, but astronomy faculty members assert that no other department in FAS has turned away the caliber of junior faculty as has the astronomy department.

Over the last 25 years, there have been 23 junior faculty members in the astronomy department. Only three--Professors of Astronomy Jonathan A. Grindlay, Abraham Loeb and Alyssa Goodman--were eventually granted tenure.

All but one of the other 20 have gone on to tenured positions at UC-Berkeley, MIT, Princeton and other universities in three countries. One, Brian Flannery, is a corporate executive at Exxon. One former faculty member has an institute named after him in Europe.

"[The list of former junior faculty] embarrassed the hell out of the Astronomy Department," admits a faculty member.

Jane Luu was an associate professor in the astronomy department until she received a job offer from the University of Leiden in Ireland, where she is now tenured.

Luu was instrumental in the discovery and subsequent research of the Kuiper Belt, which scientists believe is the source of short source comets. The belt of nearly 70,000 "trans-Neptunian" objects is believed to hold many clues to the formation of the solar system.

"Clearly, she is someone who should have gotten tenure," says a fellow colleague.