"It's funny in the sense of not characteristic, but they do have to be thinking about [retirement] because there's no question that they...have a comparatively small faculty and therefore not a lot of flexibility," Rudenstine says.

But the problem is not especially urgent for all the schools.

The Kennedy School, for example, does not view the new regulations as especially burdensome, according to University Provost Albert Carnesale, who will end a four-year term as dean in December.

"It's not a pressing problem," Carnesale says. "The Kennedy School has a very young senior faculty--the number of people who will reach 70 in the next decade is only two or three."

And the Law School is trying to expand its faculty, so retirement issues are hardly pressing at all, according to faculty and administrators there.

Law School Dean Robert C. Clark could not be reached for comment.

Across the schools, the problem inducing faculty to retire is communicated by a change in benefits policy that the University enacted in 1995.

The University reduced its contribution to the pension fund by one percent, causing an outcry in FAS last fall. (The University also imposed a soft-cap on medical benefits.)

"Part of the danger of the end of mandatory retirement will be determined by how secure the faculty feel that their benefits and pension will see them through if they don't work into their seventies," says Philip A. Kuhn, professor of history and of East Asian languages and civilizations.

Case Study: The Business School

The Business School is the first in the University to create a comprehensive plan for faculty retirement.

It views its plan, made up of several components, as part of the larger context of faculty development.

"The program we've developed is very broad-based," says Kim B. Clark '74, who took over as Business School dean earlier this month. "I think it's very important to get people started on planning and preparing early on because a conversation that may be a big deal could be very different if you've had five or six of them."

In last month's HBS Bulletin, McArthur discusses the challenges facing the school and argues that the end of mandatory retirement has placed the school in an "impossible situation."

He adds that administrators there have reached "a robust consensus that age 70 ought to be the outside retirement-age limit for all of us here."