In Dec. 2009, Smith announced a one-time faculty retirement plan that invited professors aged 65 and over who have served at least 10 years at the University to leave their teaching posts within the next four years. Nearly a quarter of the faculty in FAS is eligible for the package.

Discussions about a faculty retirement plan have been in the works for well over a decade, according to former University Provost Jerry R. Green. But the recent implementation of the package comes at an opportune moment for a University in the throes of financial distress.

Not only would the package alleviate budgetary pressure by incentivizing retirement for older professors, it would also create vacancies for younger, lower-salaried hires.

“One sort of feels an obligation to the department one’s working in, as one ages, not to hang around forever,” says Chemistry Professor, Emeritus William Klemperer ’50.

PLANTING THE SEEDS

In further pursuit of integrating younger faculty members into FAS, the school has intensified efforts to retain its junior faculty.

When he arrived on campus in 1961 as an assistant professor, Neurosciences Professor John E. Dowling said that the expectation was that only a handful of the other assistant professors in the field would be awarded tenure at Harvard. Dowling even left for Johns Hopkins University before being invited back to Harvard in 1971.

But times have changed: “When we try to appoint an assistant professor today, it’s more like appointing a senior faculty member,” Dowling says.

In the last five years, the University has moved toward a tenure track process that looks to promote professors from within the community. As a result, FAS chooses its junior faculty under the assumption that they will ride the tenure track through to a full professorship.

Instead of solely focusing on attracting the well-established and accomplished stars of the academy, the University has dedicated itself to taking a risk on young professionals with potential, according to Dowling.

“One good thing about aiming to get younger faculty is that if you bet on the right faculty, you get them at the peak of their productivity,” says Deanna Dalrymple, department administrator of the history of art and architecture department.

Klemperer says that in the past the University has “erred on the side of hiring people who are past their creative period.”

With diminished capability to make hires, Smith has turned to the junior faculty already on campus. Last year, he appointed an expert in inequality, Sociology Professor Michèle Lamont, to assist in the cause.

As senior advisor to the Dean on Faculty Development and Diversity, Lamont has universalized a mentorship program originally targeted at matching female junior faculty with members of the senior faculty.

These more experienced individuals provide their mentees with suggestions on fruitful areas of research to pursue and connections to other  academic heavyweights in the field, shaping the younger individuals to become formidable candidates for tenure at Harvard.