And in spring 2000, the standard starting salary for assistant and associate professors was increased by more than 10 percent—with similar adjustments for continuing untenured professors. Also, junior faculty have been awarded better leave policies as well as salary support to supplement outside fellowships.

Summers has said promoting more junior faculty from within is on his agenda.

“I’m certainly hopeful that our increased emphasis on appointing scholars at an early career stage will contribute to the diversity of our Faculty given that the younger cohort of scholars are more diverse than more senior cohorts,” Summers said at a recent interview.

And Geisinger Professor of History William C. Kirby, who will take over from Knowles as FAS dean at the end of June, says increasing the frequency of internal promotions is also on his map.

Kirby said in an interview last week that increasing the number of internal promotions can start with the junior Faculty appointments process—by “hiring the absolute best person to be an associate professor.”

In addition to these efforts to bring in younger, more diverse faculty, there are natural trends at work that should help along the process of faculty diversification.

As more female and minority members of the new generation of scholars trickle into the Faculty, the many white male members of the older generation are retiring.

More than three-quarters of the professors who retired from FAS last year were males.

However, the people replacing the retiring white men are of a different breed altogether. Trower says that the next generation of academics—both male and female—places a higher value on quality of life than its predecessors. This new emphasis might be chasing young scholars away from the rigid demands of the academy and towards the more flexible benefits of the business world.

“New scholars are saying, ‘We want a quality of life. We’d like to have that in the academy, but we’re not sure we can,’” according to Trower.

The business world has been more adept at meeting the needs of two-career families and working mothers since their widespread entrance into the workplace in the 1970s—including job shares, family leave, subsidized daycare and flex time.

While few say that the academy is openly hostile to women, the subtle aspects of the way a university is run can significantly stifle professors’ personal needs—for both males and females—professors and administrators say.

University meetings are often scheduled in the late afternoon and early evenings to allow time for teaching during the day. At Harvard, for instance, its monthly Faculty meetings are conducted at 4 p.m. on Tuesdays. Additionally, dinner engagements, evening lectures and symposia are a critical part of the academic social network.

Tilghman suggests that scheduling meetings during daytime hours would better accommodate faculty members who have night-time engagements, such as baseball games and children’s homework.

Another suggestion is improving day-care opportunities for faculty members.