Senior Lecturer Juliet B. Schor, acting chair of Harvard's undergraduate women's studies program and one of the program's most prominent faculty members, will leave the University for a tenured position at Boston College at the end of the academic year, she said on Friday.

Schor said she will be appointed to Boston College's sociology department and will teach in an interdisciplinary Ph.D. program entitled "Social Economy and Social Justice."

Schor joined Harvard's economics department in 1984. She describes her work in the department as "radical or critical economics." She became director of studies for the women's studies program in 1992. Schor said she did not go through the department's tenure process but did not elaborate on the reasons.

Schor said last night that her status as a full professor at Boston College represented "a part of [her decision to leave]," but did not credit what she called a "promotion" as the primary reason for her departure.

"I'm ready to move on," she said. "I've been at Harvard almost 20 years."

"[BC] is a great fit for me," she added. "I'm looking forward to teaching graduate students again."

Schor's colleagues agreed that her new post at Boston College has more cachet than her position at Harvard.

"Director of studies is not a ladder faculty position," said Lynne B. Layton, an assistant clinical professor of psychology at the Harvard Medical School, who writes feminist cultural criticism. "A move to a tenured faculty position is in academia a move up."

According to Ann Pellegrini '86, a gender studies specialist who left Harvard last year for a tenure-track position at Barnard, Schor's duties as director of studies were "half administrative, half faculty....[At Boston College], she won't be wearing two hats."

Schor's colleagues describe her as a high-profile presence and an asset to the University. "She's a really major public intellectual...and a social conscience on campus for women's issues and economic justice," said Layton.

Schor, who led an open panel discussion with students on gender in academia last Friday, described herself as "known as someone who cares about [those issues]."

Schor criticized the University for the gender composition of its senior faculty, which she said still consists of only 16 percent women.

Students in Schor's classes said with her departure, the University will lose one of its most prominent female role models.

"She sets a good example for girls who want to be teachers in higher education," said Katie E. Scott '03, who is currently enrolled in Schor's lecture Women's Studies 132, "Shop 'Til You Drop: Gender and Class in Consumer Society."

According to Pelligrini, the search for Schor's replacement as director of studies will end this Friday.

"I can't imagine women's studies at Harvard without her," she said.