Academia has long lagged behind corporations in work-family benefits, mired in a rigid "publish or perish" tradition that denies tenure to professors who don't produce and leaves little room for time off.

Now, alarmed by high quit rates among faculty, charges of sexism and the looming retirement of baby-boom profs, top universities are shifting gears fast.

Ohio State University, Princeton University, the University of Michigan and the University of California system in the past two years have improved such policies as family leave, part-time work and job-finding help for trailing spouses in dual-earner couples. Massachusetts Institute of Technology altered its policies in 2001.

At Harvard University, a 10-year, $50 million commitment to diversity, made last year by former President Larry Summers, is being used partly to recast work-family policies. The initiative was begun after Dr. Summers sparked protests by questioning women's scientific ability, and it will continue under Interim President Derek Bok, says Evelynn Hammonds, who was named last year to the new post of senior vice provost, faculty development and diversity. A report including new guidelines for parental leave and lighter workloads post-childbirth will be issued this spring, Dr. Hammonds said in a statement.

The trend stands to make academic careers more attractive to young parents and others with family responsibilities. At stake are top recruits like Kristi Schmidt. A Ph.D. candidate in engineering at the University of Michigan, campus athlete and volunteer, Ms. Schmidt says she originally came to grad school "to become a professor, to mentor students and to do research." But now, juggling interviews with three Fortune 500 companies and two Big Ten universities, among others, she is wavering.

Despite her old dreams, universities' demanding tenure track and lack of assistance for trailing spouses (she and her boyfriend are discussing marriage) now seem like a risk, she says. "I think industry can offer more to us."

It may be hard to feel sorry for college professors, who enjoy tremendous day-to-day flexibility in blending work and personal schedules. The issue, however, isn't a lack of short-term flexibility, but the lack of long-term flexibility to speed up or slow down career progress for family needs.

The tenure system, which safeguards the jobs of proven professors, is essentially a ticking clock that gives wannabe profs a finite time to compile the credentials required to win tenure. The pressure to achieve is often most intense during the prime child-bearing years. Also, the tenure track in academia can extend into one's 40s, longer than the typical partner track in accounting or law.

Professors who take time off for family fear losing out on tenure. Also, they're often asked to find their own substitute instructor -- a nearly impossible task that creates ill will among colleagues already carrying full workloads.

Even when profs may ask to stop the tenure clock, as some colleges' policies allow, many fear discrimination. At least two lawsuits have been filed by female professors in California and Oregon claiming they were denied tenure because they took time out for family; both were settled out-of-court.

One result: what researchers call "the baby gap." Twice as many women faculty members as men -- 38 percent, compared with 18 percent -- had fewer children than they wanted, says a 2003 survey of 4,400 University of California faculty. Also, a 2005 report by the American Council on Education, Washington, D.C., found a recruiting gap: Women, who earn 51 percent of all doctoral degrees awarded to U.S. citizens by U.S. colleges and universities, make up only 38 percent of full-time faculty.

Nationwide, some institutions, including MIT, are making the post-childbirth tenure-clock extension automatic, to ease fears of discrimination. "We found women were reluctant to ask for it if it wasn't automatic," says Lotte Bailyn, a management professor at MIT.

Princeton last year began automatically granting a tenure-clock extension to both fathers and mothers after childbirth. Ohio State in 2004 began offering several weeks' paid parental leave for fathers as well as mothers, coupled with a 10-week reduction in teaching load, says Joan Herbers, dean of the college of biological sciences. And the University of Michigan recently expanded its policy that allows new mothers a lightened workload, to include fathers and others with family-care duties, says Janet Weiss, dean of the school of graduate studies.

Supporting part-time work for faculty is another push. Effective Jan. 1, all campuses at University of California authorized flexible part-time work for family or personal needs, plus an automatic tenure-clock extension, says Marc Goulden, principal analyst at the university's Berkeley campus.

To recruit dual earners, the University of Michigan, Ohio State and the University of Wisconsin provide funds to find university jobs for trailing spouses. Also, Princeton and Rutgers University last November led the formation of a 28-college consortium in New Jersey with a shared online jobs database for trailing spouses.

The trend seems certain to continue. More than one in five of the nation's big research universities, or 55 out of 260, recently applied for competitive grants to expand work-family policies from the Sloan Foundation, New York, a philanthropy that funds advancements in science, technology and quality of life. "Universities recognize that they have a problem," says Kathleen Christensen, Sloan's program director. "They want to do something about it -- and they are."

A New Curriculum

Universities are improving work-family benefits by:

Extending the tenure track for family needs

Allowing tenure-track faculty to work part-time

Making men eligible for family supports

Temporarily relieving new parents of teaching duties

Helping professors' spouses find jobs