While Dean Ford is in Europe on his sabbatical. President Pusey will face the tough task of picking up a new chief officer for a sharply divided Faculty

With only two years left in his term. Pusey conceivably could do what he has done before: serve as acting dean as well as President until his term ends. But on his way out of yesterday's Faculty meeting. Pusey made it clear that he would not take the double job again.

That predictable announcement-along with some of Pusey's other beliefs about the role of the dean-points to one man as the clear favorite to take

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Ford's place. John Dunlop, the experienced economist who will be acting dean while Ford is gone in the Spring, has the qualities Pusey will probably be looking for.

In formal and informal statements over the last few years, both Pusey and Ford have emphasized that a dean should serve only as long as his president. Before last April's strains on the Administration. Ford had said that he planned to resign with Pusey in 1972.

Pusey's respect for his office-and his sense of the importance of the dean-have led him to the same conclusion. He reportedly has told friends that he would not want to burden his successor with a dean held over from his own administration.

Temoprary Dean

So the man who serves Ford's last two years probably will have to do so on an overtly temporary basis. Pusey will be looking for a man to take the job for a finite period only.

Tension between Ford and liberal Faculty members increased after a letter stolen from Ford's files was published last April. The letter, from Ford to Pusey, criticized the Faculty's ROTC vote as hasty and ill-conceived.

This Fall, Faculty liberals have again overturned a series of administration-backed plans-most of them dealing with Faculty organization. Last month, for example, the Faculty amended a proposal for choosing members of a new "Dean's Cabinet." The effect of the change was to cut sharply the dean's influence in choosing the members.

Despite these incidents. Ford said yesterday that his "continuing pride in this Faculty, viewed simply as a body of scholars, has survived, and will survive."

He also made three optimistic observations at the end of his statement saying that:

he feels no "impulsion" to leave Harvard after resigning as Dean:

the Faculty's relation with the Corporation and Overseers "is in reality much wonder than some people appear to believe":

students will be "not only an innovating, but also a steadying force" in the University.

After Ford's announcement Pusey praised him as "a dedicated scholar-in the best sense of that old-fashioned and much maligned expression-and a very great gentleman,"