Harvard's Governing Boards yesterday approved the selection of the first three members of President-designate Derek C. Bok's administration.

The Corporation and Overseers elected Hale Champion financial vice-president of the University and named Walter J. Leonard, now assistant dean of the Law School, and Stephen B. Farber '63 assistants to the President.

Champion, presently vice-president for Finance, Planning and Operations at the University of Minnesota, is the first of three vice-presidents expected to be picked by Bok.

At Harvard, Champion will help formulate financial policy and will be responsible for physical planning, development and construction. He will also oversee student housing, food services and the Department of Buildings and Grounds.

Both Leonard, the first black named to the Bok administration, and Farber, a 29-year-old former executive assistant to New Jersey Governor, Richard J. Hughes, will be chiefly concerned with community and minority issues.

Black Recruiter

Leonard, who is probably one of the five most respected faculty among students at the Law School, has played a major role in recruiting black students and developing black-oriented programs at the school.

Last fall, he organized and directed a highly successful three-day symposium on black lawyers in America at the Law School.

Farber is by far the youngest of the three appointees, but he is experienced in community and minority affairs.

After graduating from Harvard magna cum laude, Farber went on to the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, where he received a Master of Public Affairs degree in 1965.

As a legislative assistant to Congressman John Brademas (D-Ind.) in 1966-67, Farber worked on community relations in Washington. Earlier he had worked in a Trenton, N. J., community action program and in the New Jersey Office of Economic Opportunity.

Farber went on to become chairman of People for Auto Insurance Reform-a state-wide citizens' group in New Jersey which he presently heads-following a three-year stint as Hughes's executive assistant.

Leonard, 41, will probably assume a position closer to Bok than Farber since he has been assistant director of Admissions and Financial Aid at the Law School since 1969 in addition to being assistant dean under Bok.

As assistant director of Admissions, Leonard raised the number of blacks at the Law School to well over 100 or better than 15 per cent of the student body. Albert M. Sacks, Bok's successor as dean of the School, recently termed Leonard's handling of black admissions "a superb job."

From Alma to Atlanta

Like Farber, Leonard's background includes political experience. In Atlanta as a young man (Leonard was born in Alma, Georgia), he ran realty companies for seven years but also assisted in the campaigns of Ivan Allen Jr. for Mayor and of Samuel Phillips McKenzie for Superior Court Judge of Fulton County, Georgia.

Before coming to Harvard in 1969, Leonard taught Law at Howard University and the University of Virginia; his courses included Land Finance, the Legal Process, American Legal Institutions and the Law of Corporations.