Legislation May Affect Tenure System

College faculty members will almost certainly not be exempted from Congressional legislation--bogged down in a Senate-House conference committee since September--which will protect workers under the age of 70 from mandatory retirement. Senate sources said yesterday.

Peter Harris, staff member in the office of Sen. Claiborne Pell (D.R.I.) said yesterday permanent exemption for college faculty has been "pretty much ruled out" although the final version of the bill may provide for a three-to-seven-year grace period before the legislation takes effect.

Destroy Tenure?

Many members of the Harvard administration feel the bill, which is designed to increase the job security of elderly people, may actually start a trend which could iead to the destruction of the entire tenure system.

Daniel D. Cantor, director of personnel at Harvard, said yesterday that although the bill now pending will have only a moderate effect on Harvard and other universities, he fears the legislation may pave the way to a complete prohibition of mandatory retirement, which would make the current tenure system unfeasible.

"Anything that guarantees a person employment without a cut-off date would be a whole new ball game," Cantor said.

The elimination of mandatory retirement would mean the only way colleges could retire faculty members who can no longer teach would be to review their competence. Because that review would have to apply to professors of all ages, no faculty member would have the assurance of employment provided by tenure.

Little Effect on Faculty

Bruce Collier, assistant to the dean for financial affairs, said yesterday the bill now in conference would have little immediate effect on the Faculty, which now offers professors at the age of 66 the choice of teaching a half-load of courses for four years or a full load of courses for two years.

Extension

The bill, providing job security until the age of 70, would therefore double the amount of courses such professors could teach, but would not significantly restrict the number of academic openings at Harvard, he said.

But Collier added the bill would "substantially decrease" the number of academic jobs in the country as a whole in the years immediately after its passage. The long-term effect of increasing the teaching life of professors would be more moderate, he said, although "the job picture for PhD's will remain bleak into the indefinite future."