Dean Nabs Treasury Position

President Reagan will nominate a Business School dean to be assistant secretary of the Treasury for domestic finance, the While House announced Wednesday.

Charles O. Sethness, associate dean for external relations, next week will leave his B-School position as head of alumni relations, fundraising and publications. If the Senate confirms his nomination, Sethness will join a group of 12 assistant secretaries in the Treasury Department's fourth highest post.

If confirmed, Sethness, 44, will handle debt management matters, federal financing affairs and general financial markets policy for the department. From 1973 to 1975, he served as a special assistant to the Secretary of the Treasury and as U.S. executive director on the board of the World Bank.

"I'm very excited about the opportunity to be involved in the questions I'll be dealing with," Sethness said yesterday. "The time I've spent at the Harvard Business School has been very positive, and I've enjoyed it a lot--I was not looking for another job," he added.

If his nomination is approved, Sethness will succeed Thomas Healey, who had asked him if he was interested in being considered for the job.

Sethness is universally praised for his breadth of knowledge about finances, and for his judgment powers. "He is an extraordinary people managers, a man of incomparable integrity, a man of perceptiveness and sensitivity," said Ann Sweet '57, director of alumni relations at the B-School. "He'll be very much missed as a human and as a boss."

"I think he'll do an excellent job. He has a very broad range of experience with a lot of different countries and wonderful judgment," said Susan A. Rogers, the B-School's assistant dear for executive education. "He has a tremendous amount of support and respect around here-he'll be very hard to replace. It bet they [the Treasury Department] can't wait to get him."

Sethness, who received his Bachelor's degree in English from Princeton in 1963, came to the B-School as a Baker Scholar and received an MBA with high distinction in 1966. He returned to Harvard as an administrator in 1981.

It is unclear when the Senate will consider Sethness's nomination