University leaders must take urgent measures to alter the current procedure of awarding tenure to faculty members, according to a recent report released by the American Council on Education. The February report, based on recommendations from the National Panel of Presidents and Chancellors, advocates creating more flexible tenure-track faculty career paths at higher education institutions nationwide.

The report found that an increasing number of new doctorates are leaving academia or are pursuing careers outside the traditional tenure-track path. Many are forced to do so because of the tightening academic job market in a wide range of disciplines, the report stated.

In addition, women and other faculty with family or unusually heavy care-giving responsibilities favor jobs that are not permanent positions on university faculties in order to gain a better balance between personal and career life, it stated.

The report recommends that institutional leaders create hospitable environments to welcome and support a diverse faculty by meeting changing needs throughout their careers and developing policies that encourage flexible career paths to help faculty balance personal and professional issues. Among other points, the report suggests that schools create flexibility in the periods in which departments evaluate professors for permanent appointment, without altering the academic standards or criteria.

“The issue of having more flexibility for tenure has been an issue for a long time,” said Claire Van Ummersen, vice president and director of the A.C.E.’s Office of Women in Higher Education. “Right now, there exists a very inflexible career cycle for many women and an increasing number of men. [The report] is an attempt to look systematically at studies done about the tenure track and understand how they can be made more flexible. We are trying to design a new, ideal system.”

The tenure process has traditionally been an eight-year procedure that includes strict deadlines every two years, with little room for faculty to have a life outside research or time to handle unexpected emergencies, according to UCSD Academic Senate Chair and anthropology professor Donald Tuzin.

UCSD is in the early stages of discussion to implement measures similar to those advocated by A.C.E.

“We don’t want to make the academic requirements for tenure any less rigid, but UCSD is putting in procedures to make it more realistic for women and academic couples to reach a tenured position,” Tuzin said.

According to Van Ummersen, the effort to make the tenure process more flexible would benefit not only faculty members with families, but also the entire college community and the country as a whole.

“We need many more men and women in the higher education system to handle the increase in student population,” Van Ummersen said. “We are also losing a lot of foreign faculty to their home countries, particularly in the fields of science and engineering, and we will need to fill those positions with U.S. citizens. For the U.S. to be competitive in a world economy, it needs … a highly educated workforce, which means it needs to have … more high-level faculty at colleges.”

Young academics, especially women, are finding they can better balance their professional and personal lives in other positions, Van Ummersen said.

“Ideally, we are working to make a career in academia competitive with the corporate world,” she said.

She also said that a large number of faculty members will be retiring in the next 10 years and replacements will be needed to fill the voids.

A.C.E. Associate Project Director Gloria Thomas said that, while the report is an effort to suggest and implement more measures for flexible tenure, a major goal is to coordinate such efforts among as many campuses as possible.

“Some of these recommendations have been implemented at a handful of institutions on an ad- hoc basis, but have not yet been institutionalized,” Thomas said. “There has been a lot of interest on the part of universities in the full report. Discussions are beginning to take place on campuses, although we are not at a point where policies are in place yet.”

Thomas said she was not sure about a definite timeline for the implementation of the group’s recommendations, but said she is hopeful that some success can be seen in the next few years.

“Higher education can take its time,” Thomas said. “We hope to have a sense in the next five years as to how effective this will be.”

Tuzin said UCSD first started discussing these issues 10 to 15 years ago and is continuously looking for ways to improve. He also said that many other schools are now taking measures to make the idea of tenure more appealing to faculty, particularly women and minorities.

“This is becoming a more widespread movement, and the University of California, particularly UCSD, has been very sensitive to these issues,” he said. “I would be surprised if any other universities are further ahead than us regarding these procedures.”

To enhance recruitment efforts, A.C.E. said that universities must abolish penalties in the hiring process for individuals who have taken time off from work to take care of young or ailing family members, or to attend to other pressing personal matters.

“Right now there is an idea among professors that if they take leave, they would be seen as less committed and might be passed up for a promotion later down the line,” said John Curtis, Director of Research for the American Association of University Professors. “There needs to be a cultural change among the professors as well as an institutional change. It’s important for faculty to take time and initiate themselves and make recommendations to change faculty career paths.”

Curtis’ organization did not take a stance on the A.C.E. report.