When Harvard "gets cracking" on helping women juggle things like Ph.D. aspirations and raising families, the whole country will benefit, he adds.

But female Corporation members are important to more than just "women's issues," according to Calkins.

"I think women are more sensitive to human relationship-type questions," he says. "I think Harvard could benefit from a woman's touch."

However, Calkins says the University is not wholly to blame for the Corporation's lack of women.

"In the searches I participated in, women were included as much as men," Calkins says. "In the last 30 years, I'm sure there has not been any conscious attempt to exclude women."

Instead, Calkins says, it is the nature of the job--combined with its stringent requirements--that makes it hard for women to join.

Slichter, a Corporation member from 1970 until 1995, says that because the job requires extensive experience--both business and academic--qualified female candidates have come up only in recent years. And it was not easy for University officials to draw these women in once they found them.

"Women who were qualified were highly sought by corporations [all over the country]," Slichter says.