Harvard's Nigeria peace corps plan is not dead, Dean Monro said Monday. Instead, he asserted, the program has merely undergone a "change of signals and direction" since January.

The Administration is planning a "low-key seminar orientation program," which will probably start this week and run through April and May, Monro revealed. The Faculty committee that has been associated with the African Teaching Project will meet to work out details later this week.

"The notion I have," Monro explained, "is to try to use Harvard's influence to get students placed, and to try to develop training programs."

Monro pointed out that the number of applicants has reached 65, including "some awfully good people."

The future of Harvard's own peace corps, Monro said, continues to depend on the direction the Kennedy program takes. Negotiations are going on with the national Peace Corps and the Federal government. Monro said that he "can't tell what kind of training program we'll have or who is going to pay for it." He noted that the College "would very much like to run a training program here this summer and next year."

A White House summary of the report that R. Sargent Shriver, Jr., the director of the national Peace Corps, submitted to President Kennedy, said that the Federal program would operate in part "through arrangements with colleges, universities, or other educational institutions."

The report cited several advantages of working through universities, including the school's ability to recruit "on the spot." And, it said, "the Peace Corps can help the universities by giving new purpose to the student during his years of study."

Since overseas work is "a new and peripheral field" for colleges, the schools would need the help of the Peace Corps staff, the report added. It did, however, point out the advantages of a "decentralized" operation.

Shriver's report said that the Peace Corps training should be integrated "so far as possible" into college curricula, and that final orientation programs should also be established, "using college and university facilities whenever possible."

Funds provided under the Mutual Security Act within the discretion of the President and the Secretary of State are the only immediately available source of finances, the report said. It urged that Congress authorize the Peace Corps to receive contributions from "businesses, unions, civic organizations, and the public at large," and pointed out that foreign currency accumulated by the sale of American food surpluses might be used to pay host country expenses.

The report said other financial aid might come from participating bodies, including the host countries and the universities.