Other professors such as Mansfield say their real concern is that the “dead wood” in the faculty will restrict change by preventing younger faculty from moving in, leading to stagnation in the department.

“The law restricts change,” Mansfield says. “It’s not only that old people stay on too long, but that younger ones are excluded.”

Kirby, too, acknowledges that the law might have created some impediments to hiring.

“[It] did liberate us from some artificial constraints but does of course pose challenges in hiring,” Kirby said in an interview last fall.

According to Associate Dean of the Faculty Vincent J. Tompkins, the lack of mandatory positions for new faculty members means his office must closely monitor the ratio of junior and senior faculty members.

“There is not that kind of literal blocking of promotions, but if the average length of stay is longer, then the aggregate effect is fewer faculty spots opening up each year,” Tompkins says.

According to Biewener, not only does having older professors in the department hinder junior faculty appointments, but the department is guided and defined by older professors—a dangerous trend, Biewener says.

“In terms of allowing growth and the continuation of scholarship, clearly the future belongs to the younger people in the field,” he says. “It is important to be able to recruit younger faculty members and not be constrained for space.”

Biewener says he opposes the elimination of the mandatory retirement age, and would vote to bring it back if he could. Though older faculty could have a role in departments, he says, that role should be limited.

Other professors agree that the lingering influence of existing professors is a significant problem.

Thompson says older professors can be dangerous to the health of the institution if they continue to throw their weight around.

“It is precisely these faculty members who are prominent and active at age 65 to 70 who are the problem,” Thompson says. “They dominate departments and set the agenda for work being done in undergraduate programs….Hanging around is blocking the growing influence of younger faculty.”

Many see this trend already happening across the University.

Five of the 17 tenured professors in the astronomy department will be over 72 by 2006, a number that concerns the department chair, Professor of Astronomy Lars Hernquist.

These five professors have chairs that sprung from a former partnership between Harvard and the Smithsonian Institute in Washington. This partnership has foundered in recent years, and there is no immediate way to replace the professors who occupy these chairs once they retire. Once these five professors retire, the chairs will disappear, leaving the department stunted and without a mechanism to replace the professorships.