Harvard students are assisting a blue-ribbon commission investigating corruption and mismanagement of government-awarded building contracts in Massachusetts.

The legislature created the special commission on state and county building last year in the wake of the McKee-Berger-Mansueto extortion scandal concerning that firm's contract to supervise construction of the University of Massachusetts at Boston. The volunteers analyze documents and assist at interviews, Robert E. Richardson '79, a paralegal aid at the special commission, said last week.

Richardson, a former volunteer, said the commission looks for Harvard volunteers in particular, because "overall they seemed to work out the best." He said he could not release the names of the new Harvard volunteers because they might disclose information that should not be made public.

Thomas O. Miett '81, one of two experienced Harvard undergraduates at the commission, said earlier this week that when he started as a volunteer last January he was told any leak traced back to him would leave him subject to felony charges.

He said he takes the documents he needs each day from double-locked file cabinets inside a strongroom. "We've been warned within an inch of our lives not to talk," he said. "It's an intimidating place."

Miett said volunteers are entrusted with increasingly more sensitive work, and that participating in interviews was "the most inspiring part of the case."

The commission has held hearings this fall on the contract award process, Miett said. He added he is more interested in hearings on corruption. "It's like a time bomb that we've been waiting for months to go off. That's what's going to blow the town sky high," he said.