Faculty members and administrators say that the structure of the tenure system itself presents a major obstacle in formulating responses to the federal law. They say there will be no way to assure that professors who remain in their posts after age 70 will stay productive, since tenured professors are never reviewed for their teaching and scholarship.

"The obvious question is how to operate a University where people have tenure where their scholarship and teaching aren't reviewed regularly," says Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '52, who sits on Spence's retirement committee. "We are studying what are the implications of various policy options and how they are available to the University."

Many administrators and faculty say they are uncertain whether lifting the mandatory retirement age will bring the policy of lifetime tenure without review into question. But most say they doubt Harvard will change its policy, citing fears about the University's commitment to academic freedom.

"When the rule hits, people who don't have the hearts, or fear the litigation, won't be able to say to someone 'You really should go,'" says Ford Professor of Social Sciences Emeritus David Riesman '31. "I don't think it is going to be a huge problem, but in the places where it is a problem, it will be an extremely difficult one. It's not going to be universal, but it's going to be serious in a few places which you can't predict."

If professors do choose to remain at the University in full-time tenured slots, faculty members say their greatest concern is that senior posts which could be open to new faculty members will remain unavailable for extended periods.

"If people don't retire and we go on paying their salaries and providing facilities, what will we do about recruitment? If we go on recruiting at the same rate, Harvard will have more and more professors, which would be financially burdensome," says Houghton Professor of Chemistry Jeremy R. Knowles.

But Knowles says that the alternative to intensive recruitment is equally impracticable. "The opposite extreme is unthinkable: we'll just stop recruiting for four or five years. That would be outrageous. A whole generation of scholars would have no opportunity for academic advancement. It's bad for that generation, but it's also appalling for an academic institution not to receive a continuing infusion of new blood," he adds.

Knowles and other faculty members say they think the solution is clear: Harvard must make retirement more attractive by providing excellent benefits and insuring that giving up one's lifetime post does not mean complete removal from the academic community.

"Administrators in each of the schools are trying to figure out what they should do to create the right environment so that faculty can graciously retire at the appropriate time," says Vice President for Finance Robert H. Scott, who sits on Spence's committee and also heads a University-wide group investigating changes in pension and benefit plans after 1993.

"We must ask, 'What kind of encouragement does the academic discipline provide for the person to leave if that's the right thing, or to stay if that is," says Scott.

One alternative, according to Riesman, is to insure that aging faculty members secure emeritus status, a title he says will help professors remain involved in the academic community without displacing a younger generation of scholars.

"I should think that the governing board will continue to give emeritus status to a person who gives up his teaching status to let another person in," Riesman says. "I see sadly my agemates who have no projects--they whither. When teaching stops, when scholarship stops, when the faculty meetings stop, I think they find an emptiness."

The University will maintain its policy of granting emeritus status to faculty members after retirement, committee members say. The emeritus standing allows a professor to maintain a campus office and remain involved with academic life, but at the same time opens up a tenured spot for a new professor.

Another plan that faculty members say the University will almost definitely implement is a phased retirement system. The University will make agreements with professors to create a gradual retirement process, moving first to half-time employment, then, over the course of three or four years, into full retirement.

In addition to making sure that professors will not lose their place in the University community, administrators say Harvard is considering how to redesign its pension plan so that the retirement ban is not a big issue.