(The following is the first of a two part feature giving background sketches on the 23 remaining candidates for the Harvard presidency. Part H will appear in Saturday's CRIMSON.)

The brief biographical sketches are by no means definitive. This is not a simple listing of accomplishments [there a Who's Who on the third floor of Lamont]; rather the intention is to give a sense of each man drawn from conversations with students and faculty at Harvard and other universities around the country.)

Bernard Bailyn, 48, chairman of the Harvard History Department:

Few will dispute that Bailyn is "a scholar's scholar" in the Harvard History Department, but even less will agree on what that means. After getting his Ph. D. here in 1953, Bailyn moved from assistant to associate to full professor in 1961 and became Winthrop Professor of History in 1966.

He's been a leading academic in his field of Colonial American History and won the Pulitzer and Bancroft Prizes in 1968 for his book "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution."

Unlike many of his social science colleagues, Bailyn is not tainted with a long history of collaboration in foreign policy. He is a pure academic; but considered both an academic and political conservative. His undergraduate course is one of the most rigorous in the University and his graduate students have simple, often exaggerated, stories of his rigidity.

"When he cuts you up, he's always the first to offer to drive you to the infirmary," one student admirer offered in his defense.

Other grad student comments vary greatly, but almost all recognize Bailyn's essential academic decency-cloaked under a few layers of sharp, supra-rational logic. "He's very diplomatic," according to one department cliche, "on his own terms." According to another. "Bailyn's the kind of man who plays his cards inside his chest."

When the Faculty split into caucuses two years ago, Bailyn was fortunate enough to be on a leave of absence and carries no scars from the hectic '68-'69 academic year. Still there is little doubt among anyone that he is strongly tied to the Faculty conservatives.

Derek C. Bok, 40, dean of the Harvard Law School:

There is a circle of three men in the latest list of 23 who can be described as academics, administrators, and labor mediators in no particular order. They are Derek Bok, Dean Dunlop, and Michigan President Robben Fleming; all are very different types of men.

Bok is by far the youngest, but has outstanding credentials in all three fields. He has the distinction of being considered Dunlop's protege as a labor negotiator, and Kingman Brewster's protege as an administrator (which is a bizarre combination). He has co-authored books with both Dunlop and Archibald Cox: and is an associate of both the Kennedy School of Government and the Economics Department.

When he became dean of the Law School, he inherited a nascent student curriculum revolt, the beginnings of the largest fund-raising drive in Law School history, and a great deal of skepticism from older Law School professors.

The fund drive turned into a 5 million dollar success-the biggest single fund-raising drive ever conducted for a law school. The curriculum has already moved substantially toward a pass-fail system, and more changes are expected over the next two years. Contrary to some of the more dire predictions, the Law School is still standing.

Bok is not as well known outside the Law School as other Harvard men under consideration, and many think this is a plus because he can come into the post as an outsider to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.