After releasing its list two weeks ago, the Corporation began to blitz Harvard Houses and hold a second round of meetings with interested student, faculty and alumni groups. One incredulous senior faculty member could not understand why the Corporation had visited him three times seeking advice on possible candidates. When he asked a colleague whether he was supposed to know all these candidates, the man replied, "You don't have to know any, you are one."

In early October, the Corporation met with all elected student members of Faculty committees, representatives of the Graduate Students Association and diverse student groups in other graduate schools. Only the graduate students remained actively interested in the search, however. Disappointed over the apathetic response in the college, the Corporation decided to split up and hold dinner meetings in both Harvard and Radcliffe houses.

"Maybe we made a mild miscalculation," Burr admitted. "I thought there would be more student groups that would put themselves together. But the reaction we've gotten has been both friendly and helpful. I was in college myself at the time Conant was chosen. I remember I was deeply and completely uninterested."

The name of former Attorney General Ramsey Clark has been mentioned in almost all student meetings with Corporation members. When Lowell House students asked why his name was not being considered, Burr reiterated the Corporation's intention to find a man with "scholarly accomplishments." (Clark has no teaching experience and went through college, law school, and a master's program in history in three years.)

Burr's response, confirmed by other Corporation members in separate House meetings ("The problem is no one respects Nate as a scholar," one Fellow said) narrows the earlier and broader Corporation search to one for a man "with a primary academic commitment." It also contains the key for separating some mere notables from serious contenders in the maze of 69 names.

THE master list is heavily weighted toward college administrators, primarily because the two most pressing problems facing the new president will be fund-raising and a bureaucratic re-organization of the president's office. "Most medium size high schools have a bigger staff than the Harvard administration," Burr has commented on several occasions. Both Princeton and Yale, comparatively smaller Ivy schools, have larger administrative staffs, and the Corporation would like to pattern its new arrangement after theirs, with clearly defined areas of concern and authority among major Massachusetts Hall administrators.

On at least one occasion, Burr has told a group of students and faculty the next president will need at least the experience of being a department chairman. Over 20 candidates have been department chairman; 9 are presently college presidents; 11 are deans; 5 are university chancellors or provosts; another 5 are vice-presidents; and 14 are directors of institutes or university-related projects.

Among these men, however, there are some who are not strictly considered scholars, and, unless there is a strong overriding reason for keeping them, they are not likely to remain on the list when it is again reduced next week. Three university presidents, for instance-Friday, Gilman, and Hester-have been administrators almost exclusively for the last ten years. John Oswald, vice-president of the University of California, may have been a distinguished scholar inplant pathology when he was chairman of his department in the fifties, but that kind of scholarship would not evoke any widespread sympathy.

The call for a man of scholarship came unanimously from members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, which is by far the largest and most influential constituency which the Corporation must deal within the search. The reaction of the Faculty to the present list, however, has ranged from unenthusiastic approval to boredom to mild outrage.

THE Corporation's accessibility has elicited the unanimous approval of the Faculty, but the first results of their nine month search have not wowed anyone.

"Now that I look over this rather squalid list," one faculty liberal noted, "I think we may have overemphasized the need for a pure academic. In the Spring we were so afraid of getting a general or a corporation executive, I guess we distrusted the Wall Street-Ropes and Gray influence too much. There are some who wonder if the need for an academic ought to be reconsidered," he added.

"You want a rip-snorter in the presidency. The place needs to be galvanized, and we've had enough theologians," he said.

Another professor questioned whether the process of widespread consultation might have limited the Corporation to a homogenous group of candidates, many of whom made it to the finals because they were not charismatic enough to make enemies. "They should have kept a tighter circle of advisors," he said. "In their search for credibility, the Corporation overextended itself; and if you look hard enough, you're bound to find someone to shoot the man down."

Last week, Burr defended the process, claiming that the Corporation has tried to balance its interviewing and adding that the alternative, more intensive short interviews with potential candidates, would be far worse.

"There is a tremendous tendency to overemphasize short interviews with candidates. You can't really learn that much about the person-not as much as you can if you call someone you know well at his university and say 'what about this guy?'"