By Debra Bradley Ruder

Gazette Staff

Retiring professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) now have a choice about whether to be called "professor emeritus/a" or "research professor."

On Tuesday, the Faculty approved a motion that the title "research professor" be available to faculty members for up to five years after retirement. After that period, the title would change to the standard emeritus or emerita.

Dean Jeremy R. Knowles said the option would address concerns that the emeritus title doesn't adequately convey faculty members' plans to continue their scholarly work after retirement. Especially in the sciences, this can have a deleterious effect on grant support, he said.

"Research professor is a more helpful and descriptive title," he commented.

Without the option, Knowles predicted, some faculty may delay their retirement and their release from teaching duties, or even leave Harvard for other institutions, thus depriving the community of their valuable contributions and presence.

The move is one of several over the past few years to help smooth the transition to retirement for faculty. The goal has been to encourage the continued involvement of professors in the life of the University while enabling the FAS to renew itself with new appointments.

On Tuesday, a number of faculty spoke for and against the motion. For example, George Field, the Robert Wheeler Willson Professor of Applied Astronomy, said he supports the goal of the legislation but worries that the title "research professor" could be misleading, given its widespread and varied use by other institutions. "The simple solution is to defend the glorious title 'emeritus/emerita,' " he said.

Professor of Government and of Sociology Theda Skocpol, however, said the Faculty Council had weighed many of the concerns about the alternate title and came down in its favor. "Anything we can do to make it easier to make the transition from full-time duties . . . to a status as a contributor to the community in other ways is worth doing," she said.

In other business at the unusually lively meeting:

* Dean Knowles announced that the experimental eight-day exam period has been successful and will continue. He also reported that nearly 40 new Core courses are being developed or discussed, and that he has decided to delay any action regarding Advanced Placement exemptions for Core science courses, pending the Faculty's ongoing review of overall curricular requirements.

* Dean of Undergraduate Education William Todd gave two preliminary reports from the Educational Policy Committee, one on the language requirement and the other on overall requirements for graduation. The reports offer a number of measures to make foreign language study a more prominent part of the undergraduate curriculum as well as to increase students' flexibility in choosing their courses.

The Committee plans to continue examining these subjects, which were raised during the Faculty's discussion on the Core Curriculum last May.

* At the prompting of Harvey Mansfield, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of Government, faculty members discussed the recent visit to Harvard of Chinese President Jiang Zemin. Mansfield said the invitation "legitimized a tyrant and his regime" and had questionable educational value.

President Neil L. Rudenstine and others said the Nov. 1 visit reflected Harvard's tradition of hosting speakers of all stripes, and he pointed to the variety of lectures and other educational events surrounding Jiang's speech.

K. Anthony Appiah, professor of Afro-American studies and of philosophy -- noting that he could not resist a "once in a lifetime" chance to agree with Mansfield -- said he was concerned about academic departments giving the appearance of endorsing policies that some find politically and morally "repugnant."