By Debra Bradley Ruder

Gazette Staff

Dean Jeremy R. Knowles last week announced several changes that improve the compensation of junior faculty members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

At their April 8 meeting, Faculty members applauded the steps, which grew out of a recent study on junior faculty recruitment and support.

Knowles said he had decided to accept three proposals analyzed by the FAS Resources Committee, including replacing the current subsidy for faculty who rent University-owned property with an across-the-board housing allowance, and broadening the travel stipend into a larger and unrestricted research fund that can be rolled over from year to year.

He also decided to provide an additional paid leave for junior faculty in the "alpha scale" departments who are promoted from assistant to associate professor, and to raise the "beta" salary scales commensurately.

Knowles said the unrestricted research fund would be available to senior faculty as well.

Faculty also discussed the childcare needs of junior faculty after a presentation by Professor of History Susan Pedersen, chair of the FAS Standing Committee on the Status of Women.

Through a survey, the committee found that childcare "proved to be a very substantial burden on junior faculty budgets," she said. Eight of the 60 respondents said they spend between 40 percent and 100 percent of their individual after-tax earnings on day care.

The report emphasized that junior faculty should be able to have children without jeopardizing their careers or their living standards, and that policies that enable them to remain academically "on track" will benefit Harvard, the scholarly community, and the scholars themselves.

Pedersen's committee recommended that the FAS establish a day-care center near Harvard Yard that would give priority to FAS junior faculty, and that the FAS subsidize childcare costs for its junior faculty. (The University currently provides $275,000 annually in scholarships to faculty and staff for day-care services.)

Eva Bellin, assistant professor of government, was one of several faculty who stressed the importance of convenient, affordable, and flexible childcare.

Markus Meister, Thomas D. Cabot Associate Professor of Molecular and Cellular Biology, said the Law School Child Care Center will vacate its space on Everett Street by June 1998, as the Law School plans to use the building for other purposes. (Meister has a child enrolled there, and his wife is president of its board.)

He said the Center was founded 26 years ago and serves 45 children, many of whose parents are associated with Harvard. He urged the FAS to consider adopting the facility, one of six independently incorporated and tuition-funded childcare centers in Harvard-owned buildings.

Dean Knowles plans to establish a faculty committee to examine the situation for FAS faculty and staff, and to advise him on possible improvements to the present arrangements.