University officials decided at a series of meetings last month to bypass Harvard's normal federally required affirmative action procedures in appointing Alberta Arthurs dean of undergraduate affairs.

Arthurs, now Radcliffe's dean of admissions, financial aid and women's education, will assume the newly created post in the fall when the Harvard and Radcliffe admissions officers merge.

Listings

Regular affirmative action procedures dictate that all administrative job openings be listed with the Personnel Office before someone is hired, in order to encourage a wide range of applications for the job, especially from women and minorities.

Arthurs's new job was not listed beforehand because of a provision in the merger of the Harvard and Radcliffe admissions offices that guarantees all present employees in the separate admissions offices jobs after the merger.

Arthurs this spring reportedly decided to take the new undergraduate affairs deanship instead of becoming associate dean of Harvard-Radcliffe admissions.

Walter J. Leonard, special assistant to President Bok and the coordinator of Harvard's affirmative action plan, said yesterday that he decided after talking to administrators involved in the Arthurs appointment to make it an exception to normal hiring procedures.

Compiled With Merger

"The job was created to comply with the admissions merger." Leonard said. "There wouldn't have been a job if there hadn't been an admissions merger. It was a matter of complying with the merger."

Leonard said he had originally questioned the legitimacy of the appointment before concluding, "after very very length discussion," that "it did fit the realm of an exception."

Phyllis Keller, affirmative action coordination for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, said yesterday that no one has protected the Arthurs appointment.

While there was no formal legal contract that merged the admissions offices, the report that called for the merger said. "Every reasonable effort should be made to give present Harvard and Radcliffe [admissions] staff members positions and ranks equivalent or higher than those being held at this time."

There has been no official announcement of Arthurs's new job, but sources say that her acceptance of it is final and that it will involve supervision of advising and counseling of undergraduates.

Arthurs was unavailable for comment yesterday.

Leonard's meetings with administrators to discuss the appointment took place after Arthurs had been offered the new job by Faculty officials.

Last summer Leonard sent a harshly worded memorandum to the dean of all of Harvard's faculties warning against "direct hiring"--the process of hiring someone for a job without listing it beforehand with personnel.