Filling the Power Vacuum

Under the dean's purview is much of Harvard's vast decentralized administration, overseeing the work of some 6500 undergraduates and 2000 graduate students, close to 800 tenured and non-tenured professors, and scores of laboratories, museums, and research institutes.

As head of this structure, the dean has primary responsibility for many crucial issues facing the University--from drawing up the Faculty's budget and setting tuition to appointing new tenured professors and establishing academic policy.

The dean, too, if he has the energy or inclination, is in a position to help address the most pressing academic issues of the day.

In the 1950s, for example, McGeorge Bundy helped oversee Harvard's expansion into a major research institution, to answer the nation's growing need for graduate students. Franklin Ford, on the other hand, ran the Faculty in the 1960s and oversaw the expansion of the College's applicant pool to nationwide proportions.

Rosovsky will undoubtedly be rememebered as the man who brought the Core Curriculum, the latest answer to the perennial question of how to provide a perfectly balanced liberal education. The new dean, many speculate, will have his hands full with such topics as junior faculty development, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and better integration of computers into the curriculum and research.

Just who that dean will be remains unclear, as inside knowledge now appears only to rest with President Bok.

This does not mean, however, that speculation about who Bok is considering hasn't been widespread among professors and Faculty administrators.

Tradition virtually dictates that Harvard's dean of the Faculty come from within the current crop of tenured professors. And from within this crop, seven names seem to appear with unusual frequency in campus discussions about the post--whether because of their administrative position, or respect among the Faculty, or both.

They are: Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn: Professor of Biology and Associate Dean of the Faculty John E. Dowling '57; Houghton Professor of Chemistry Jeremy R. Knowles; Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '51; Burbank Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development Dwight H. Perkins; Dillon Professor of International Affairs and Associate Dean of the Facult for Undergraduate Education Sidney Verba '53; and Shattuck Professor of Government James Q. Wilson.

While some may question the inclusion of a particular professor, these seven in aggregate represent the people many knowledgeable people believe may be offered the deanship.

Whether one of them would accept such a job is another matter. Almost unanimously these professors say they have thought about the position. But it would seem very improper, officials stress, for a professor to even advertise his willingness or interest in becoming dean.

What follows are brief profiles of three of these professors--Verba, Martin, and Knowles. The other four will be profiled in tomorrow's Crimson.