Once upon a time, being a tenured professor at Harvard meant being set for life. An established Faculty member could count on a long career of teaching and research at the nation's pre-eminent institution and a salary that led the pack.

Upon hitting the age of 66, most professors were secure enough to retire to their homes--many of which were located in affluent Cambridge neighborhoods--living comfortably off their Harvard pensions.

The world is now very different.

Harvard is no longer the only choice employer on the block. Well-known professors frequently have their pick of competitive offers from multiple universities, many of which have adopted a "star" system which uses high non-scale salaries to lure superb faculty. And Harvard must compete.

Add to that a steadily rising life expectancy, higher living costs and nowadays few professors are retiring at 66--comfortably or otherwise.

In the 1980s, anti-discrimination laws began to force corporations and businesses to do away with their mandatory retirement ages. Universities, Harvard prominent among them, lobbied hard to successfully obtain an exception to the law.

But the exemption to the Age Discrimination in Employment Act enjoyed by colleges and universities ran out at the end of 1993. No longer able to politely inform professors they were expected to retire by age 70, tenure now truly meant a job for life.

The University was afraid. Would its oldest Faculty continue to retire and relinquish the tenure seats they held across the University? If not, how would the University go about freeing up space for a new generation of scholars and to advance new areas of study?

"There was a lot of nervousness when the law changed," says Carol J. Thompson, Associate Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) for Academic Affairs. "[We thought], 'Oh goodness, Faculty aren't going to retire if they don't have to.'"