Harvard faculty and students are reacting with a mixture of approval and disappointment, but, most of all, confusion to a list of 69 official and relatively final candidates for the Harvard presidency.

The list, the first comprehensive compilation of remaining contenders, began circulating among select faculty and student groups two weeks ago, after the Corporation gave copies to members of the Faculty Council and University Committee on Governance Nov. 9.

( The list is reprinted in full on page 3 )

While the 69 names include several persons whom the Corporation has not had time to check completely, Francis H. Burr '35, Senior Fellow of the Corporation, said the opportunity of adding names was still open, but chances were very slim.

The Corporation must still cut down the number of persons under consideration to less than 15 before it will "go underground" to make its final decision, according to Burr. It may have already narrowed the field to less than 30 in anticipation of the twice-a-year Board of Overseers meeting being held in Cambridge this weekend. But there is no chance the final decision will be announced by Thanksgiving, as many had expected, Burr said, and less than a 50-50 chance of an announcement before Christmas vacation begins Dec. 18.

"I'd say we've moved from cold to warm, but I wouldn't say we're hot," John M. Blum '43, a junior Fellow on the Corporation, said last Sunday. Burr called the compilation of the list a step to the "second plateau."

"Up to now, we've been looking at the list with an eye toward whom we can check off," added Albert L. Nickerson '33, another Fellow. "I think we can now start looking again at the positive aspects of the people who are still on the list. We don't expect to get a man who has all the qualifications we're looking for, but we do want the man who will be able to find people who can handle things where he is weak or at least a man who is conscious of his own weakness there," he added.

Pared down from an initial stack of over 900 nominations, the list still includes between 20 and 30 names of persons who are completely unknown to most members of the Harvard community. As a result, most faculty members are taking it more as a guideline for interpreting the spectrum of candidates and intentions of the Corporation rather than a "serious" list of finalists.

Early in the Fall, the Corporation emphatically stated its desire for a man with "a primary academic commitment." Only four of the 69 men-H. Gardner Ackley, U.S. Ambassador to Italy, George P. Shultz, director of the Bureau of Management, David E. Bell, executive vice-president of the Ford Foundation and former head of the Agency for International Development, and Lewis Branscomb, director of the National Bureau of Standards-are not presently working in a university or university related projects. Although all four have strong ties to academia, some have already been dropped from the list and the others are on their way off.

Approximately one-third of the men are members of one of the nine Harvard Faculties. Some deans are being seriously considered; others appear on the list simply as members of the unofficial Queen's Honor Roll. But nearly all major ones remain-Dunlop, May, Bok, Ebert, Fouraker, Sizer, Peterson, Brooks.

A look at the candidates' academic backgrounds yields some interesting general information. While nearly half of the men Harvardconsiders qualified for the presidency have taught here (34), a significantly smaller number were educated in the College (9).

EIGHTEEN of the candidates are associated with West Coast universities. Outside of Harvard, the largest number come form Stanford (7), Chicago and Berkeley (4 apiece), N.Y.U. (3), and other Ivy schools combined (5). One explanation of the predominance of the West Coast names is the distance and inaccessibility of reliable interviewing on the qualification of candidates.

East Coast candidates, particularly in Ivy schools, are better known among their Harvard colleagues, and in the present democratic "shoot 'em down" consultations, less likely to survive. Ironically, names associated with Eastern universities are therefore more likely to be the strongest candidates.

Broken down by academic fields (in those cases where information was available), the greatest number of candidates are in the natural sciences (28)-including six medical doctors. Social Scientists comprise 26 members of the group, and only six are professors in the Humanities.

Roger Rosenblatt '29, acting master of Dunster House, is both the youngest person on the list and the only one who has not held at least a full professorship. One might say, without a great deal of risk or qualification, he doesn't have a chance.