Faculty demographics are better balanced among junior Faculty in the humanities, where 45 percent are women, but the gender balance has not yet reached the senior level.

As the report notes, Harvard has an abnormally low rate of junior Faculty members--both male and female--who are promoted internally to tenure positions.

The Department of English and American Literature and Language, for example, has never promoted a junior Faculty woman to senior status.

In the College, departments hire junior Faculty members for an eight-year contract. Their departments can choose to review the Faculty for tenure during their seventh year if they are plausible candidates for permanent positions, and the junior Faculty may be promoted to senior status at that time.

But very few junior Faculty members will get the opportunity to sign back on, according to Committee member Julie A. Buckler, assistant professor in the department of Slavic languages and literatures.

"Harvard is infamous for not having a tenure track," Buckler said. "In the past, only in exceptional cases were junior Faculty grown into senior positions."

According to Buckler, part of the reason why so few junior Faculty members get promoted is due to Harvard's high standards for senior Faculty members.

"This is Harvard, and Harvard wants to have the very best in the world," Buckler said. "You can only have a permanent place here if you are world class."

With just seven years before junior Faculty members are eligible for tenure, much of their scholarly work must be done early in their careers.

"You have seven years to prove you are a world class scholar, and that's a very tall order," Buckler said.

The report also notes that some junior Faculty members feel the same creative and unique approach to scholarship that initially got them positions in the University precludes them from ultimately receiving tenure.

Harvard's reluctance to promote from within is hardly news, but Garber said she believes getting the word out will help raise awareness of the gender imbalance.

"I hope people will not skip directly to the to the recommendations, but pay close attention to the reasoning and analysis in the first half of the report," she said.

Tenure or Toddler?

The eight-year pre-tenure period is difficult for both male and female junior Faculty members, but it can be an especially hard task for women.