Two weeks ago, David Featherman, a sociologist at the University of Wisconsin, picked up the phone and heard Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky at the other end.

It was an important phone call for the dean. In the spring. Harvard's Sociology Department had extended simultaneous offers of tenure to three leading scholars, in an extraordinary effort to revitalize the faculty of the University's most embattled department.

Earlier in the term, one scholar--Edward C. Laumann of the University of Chicago--had told Rosovsky not to put his name in the course catalogue.

Now, as he called Featherman. Rosovsky was, as one observer put it, "roughly in the position of a high school senior without a date the night before the prom, nervously working his way down the class list."

By the time the conversation was over. Featherman had given the dean the brush-off.

He and Laumann are now part of a select group of scholars around the world who have turned down offers of tenure.

Between 1973 and 1980--the last period for which such statistics are available--41 professors gave Harvard thumbs down--a rejection rate of 31 percent.

50 Percent

Counting unsuccessful preliminary feelers. Rosovsky estimated in his annual report for 1979-80 that the Faculty is able to recruit its "real first choice" about half the time.

What compels a professor to turn Harvard down?

Rosovsky went on in his report to list two of the leading factors: unwillingness to uproot a family, especially if a professor's spouse is employed: and the Faculty's policy of considering age and experience alone in determining salaries--not "star" status, which many Harvard candidates can claim at their current institutions.

In addition, the dean wrote, "the Boxton area is expensive, and I am told that reasonable people may be repelled by cold winters and hot summers."

But those are not the first reasons the refuseniks themselves offer in explaining their decisions not to come to Harvard. Laumann and Featherman, for instance, offered almost identical explanations: both thought their current departments were better than Harvard's.

'If I had gone to Harvard, it would have taken a year or two to construct the collegial network and develop the research facilities to put me somewhere close to where I am. "Featherman said in an interview this week.

"I already have everything in hand I could possibly want and then some." Laumann said, explaining his turndown.