Members soon realized that the task confronting them was a complex and unwieldy one. The committee's original mandate--"to review the University's current policies with respect to [its] contingent workforce and to make recommendations as necessary"--did not provide a detailed directive or a clear focus.

Very little knowledge existed regarding the University's contingent workforce of casual and contracted employees, committee members say.

"It became clearer and clearer that we would have to compile our own data and not rely on University systems," Zeckhauser says.

As a result, the committee devoted almost nine months to gathering information. They mailed surveys, conducted phone interviews, collected statistical data and labored to formulate a more complete picture of Harvard's workforce.

The committee never publicly announced a deadline, but members did not expect the process to last more than six to eight months.

Still, they did not finish gathering information until December 1999, much later than they initially anticipated. The committee pushed back their original internal deadline, from the fall of 1999 to New Year 2000 to the end of the academic year.

Committee member Frank E.A. Sander, Bussey professor of law and associate dean of the law school, compared the process to climbing a mountain.