Dear Miss Getachair,

I am a Lecturer in East Asian-American Relations at Harvard. Let me make clear right from the start that I don't need the job. Before I came here I was an important man on the National Security Council in the United States Government, I turned down the job of editor-in-chief of Harper's hoping I would get tenure at Harvard. Now it seems I won't be able to stay. Is there anything I can do? CHARISMATIC

Dear Charismatic,

It's probably too late. "East Asian-American Relations" is much too fuzzy, Make up your mind: Do you want American or do you want East Asian? If you want to stay at Harvard-- and neither government nor Harper's (why not the Atlantic, for heaven's sake?) is the place for a young gentleman--you should look for another job. Have you ever thought of being a House Master? Or, better--I'm told all these newspapermen come to Harvard each year as Nieman Fellows. Surely they need someone to take care of them.

Dear Miss Getachair,

I am an instructor at a state university in the Midwest. I want to be a Harvard professor. What do you think I should do?   YOUNG AND DETERMINED

Dear Y&G,

Join a women's auxiliary or a minority group.

Dear Miss Getachair,

I am rich, successful, and surrounded by important friends. All Harvard offers is crummy pay, a heavy teaching load, and a community infested with underfed hippies and overdressed tourists. So why am I beating my brains out to stay here?   BAFFLED

Dear Baffled,

Good question. I'm baffled, too.

GOOD QUESTION, indeed. Why do so many scholars enter the Harvard rat race and compete for that elusive bit of cheese, a tenured appointment? Some cite their eminent colleagues, others the excellent library, the fine students, or the Boston location.

All stress the importance of the Harvard name. The prestige of Harvard does more than boost a man's ego; it usually boosts his career. Researchers in the natural sciences find that Federal grants have a tendency to gravitate toward Cambridge. And for social scientists, the ivied paths of Harvard often lead directly to Washington.

But as the many state universities improve in quality, competitors to Harvard appear on the horizon. Although their libraries and faculties do not equal Harvard's the salary and fringe benefit offers of these universities may lure individual members of the Harvard Faculty. This still does not happen very often. The Dunlop Report on the Recruitment and Retention of Faculty noted that in the decade from 1957-8 to 1966-7, only 24 tenured Faculty members left Harvard to accept academic positions elsewhere.