Under a Federally-funded program, 20 professors from leading American colleges and universities will each teach one semester at a predominantly Negro university complex in Atlanta during the next five years.

At least one Harvard Faculty member will be among the 20.

The Distinguished Visiting Professors Program aims to improve the quality and variety of academic offerings at four Atlanta Negro colleges--Morehouse, Spelman, Morris Brown, and Clark. Morehouse is sponsoring the program.

According to Morehouse representatives, Negro colleges have trouble attracting "research-oriented, productive scholars" because of their inability to compete in salaries, facilities, and graduate students.

With the graduate schools comprising Atlanta University and the Interdenominational Theological Center, these four colleges from the largely Negro Atlanta University Center. Two visiting professors will each teach one senior-graduate course and one faculty seminar each semester.

The Program also provides for professors from the four Atlanta colleges to teach at the 19 mainly Northern and Western institutions which have joined the project. But the sponsors say that exchanges will not always be possible, and the focus of the program is on bringing scholars to Atlanta.

One Harvard Faculty member already plans to teach in Atlanta during the 1969-70 academic year, Verna C. Johnson, administrative assistant to Dean Ford, said yesterday, but she declined to name him.

Miss Johnson said that Harvard professors involved in the program will officially be "on leave" while in Atlanta.

(Faculty members may be "on leave" by taking a paid sabbatical, for which they are eligible after every seven years, or by leaving temporarily, without pay, with the permission of the Corporation.)

The four Negro colleges hope to bring at least one professor to each of their departments, and others to fields in which they have not yet formed a faculty.

An Atlanta professor will probably teach at Harvard next year, Miss Johnson said yesterday. Harvard departments must be able to place the visitors. Miss Johnson added that the Biology and Mathematics departments have already expressed interest.

The Program's funds were obtained under Title III of the Higher Education Act, which provides assistance for "developing institutions." The money will provide visitors with a salary at least as large as their home university pay, and with a travel allowance. Housing will be provided free to the visitors.