President Pusey said Friday that he hopes the Corporation will appoint a new Fellow by the end of this academic year.

The Corporation, reliable sources indicate, offered the post to David Rockefeller '36, president of the Chase Manhatten Bank and president of the Harvard Board of Overseers, but, the sources say, Rockefeller turned it down because it requires too much time. Pusey and several members of the Corporation refused to comment on this.

The Corporation has been acting with only four Fellows since Thomas Lamont '21, died last April.

Pusey said the Corporation usually spends a couple of years choosing a new Fellow but that this process ordinarily occurs during the last two years of service of the Fellow who is about to retire. The most recent appointments, Treasurer George F. Bennett '33 and Albert L. Nickerson '33, were made in 1966 immediately after the retirement of Charles A. Coolidge '17 and Treasurer Paul Cabot '21.

Fellows are theoretically appointed for life, but there is an unwritten rule that they retire at 70. Because Lamont was the Senior Fellow of the Corporation, the Corporation was, in fact, discussing the question of his successor while he was still alive, Pusey said.

Under Overseers

The Corporation, consisting of the President, the Treasurer, and five Fellows is the second highest governing board of the University, under the elected 30-man Board of Overseers. The Overseers make all appointments of more than one year, but the Corporation has final responsibility for financial matters and granting of all degrees. The Corporation meets every other Monday during the academic year in Massachusetts Hall. The Overseers meet seven times a year.

One Fellow, R. Keith Kane '22, said in an interview last week, that he would like to see the Corporation choose a medical doctor as the fifth Fellow. Pusey said, "Ideally it would be nice to have a scientist but we do not consider background in making the choice." The last M.D. on the Corporation was Roger I. Lee '02, who served from 1931 to 1954.

Sargent Kennedy '28, secretary to the Corporation, said the President and Fellows have been discussing the new Fellow "quite consistently" since Lamont's death. Kennedy added that in the weekly work of the Corporation, "it doesn't make any difference whether we are six or seven." This semester they have been five. Only three Fellows have been joining Pusey and Treasurer George F. Bennett '33 at the meetings: one Fellow, William L. Marbury, has been ill and unable to make the trip up from Maryland.