In the last few years, Harvard's notable dearth of women and minority Faculty members has prompted strong criticism from University groups and at least one federal review of Harvard's hiring practices. And with the prospect of slackening federal enforcement of affirmative action regulations, some in the University community have warned that Harvard may soon abandon efforts to hire more women and minority scholars.

Last week, Henry Rosovsky, dean of the Faculty, tried to allay such suspicions. In his annual report to the president. Rosovsky addressed affirmative action, arguing that the University should make a special effort to keep its hiring decisions free of discrimination.

Although Rosovsky did not specifically call for the Faculty to recruit women and minorities aggressively, he did urge that it keep its hiring practices "colorblind and sex-neutral."

Rosovsky made no specific new suggestions for improving the Faculty's hiring practices; however, he supported two recommendations from a 1980 Faculty report on recruiting women and minorities: creating visiting professorships for women and minority scholars and hiring such scholars when the opportunity arises even if it means "borrowing" against future tenure openings."

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Student activists, theologians and cities and towns around the country have called for an end to nuclear weapons development, but the Harvard Corporation seems reluctant to join the growing national trend.

The Corporation last week voted to abstain on a shareholder resolution that calls on the American Telephone and Telegraph Company (AT&T)--in which Harvard owns about $20 million of stock--to set up a special committee to evaluate its nuclear weapons development.

The abstention reversed an earlier recommendation by the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility to support the resolution, which asks AT&T to appoint a committee to examine the "moral, social, economic and national security implications" of the company's operations.

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A new flyer that will be distributed in the Square later this month, asks students to reject "free love" and develop "an understanding of the spiritual dimensions of relationships."

No, this is not the latest publicity campaign of the Moral Majority or the National Conservative Political Action Committee. Instead, it is part of a new campus drive recently launched by the Collegiate Association for the Research of Principles, and offshort of the Rev. Sun Myung Moon's Unification Church.

The group is trying to convince students to rethink their sexual values and assume "new sexual ethics," the project's organizer said last week.

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The Harvard Cooperative Society was rather uncooperative last week, students hoping to win seats on the company's Board of Directors complained.

The students--running together on an independent slate for the 11 seats--filed grievances Thursday that biographical sketches they submitted to be mailed out with the ballots were "censored" to reduce their chances of winning.

On the ballots mailed out to all Coop members. Coop-endorsed candidates are denoted by an asterisk. "Coop Group" candidates wanted to be identified as a slate believing in "student items at student prices, responsible investments, positive labor-management relations and better communication between students and board members." But the ballots mailed out April 2 made no mention of the independent slate.

Was it deliberate? "I don't know a thing about a Coop Group." Coop General Manager James A. Argeros said of the slate that ran and won five seats in last year's election.

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"I don't know whether we're just fishing or not." Harvard Police Chief Saul L. Chafin said as the five-month search for Joan Webster entered a new phase. By the end of the week, police had dragged in vain both Walden Pond and a lake in Beverly.

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The sun is shining and the temperature is into the 50s, but four days ago, it looked like winter all over again. A fierce blizzard swept through southern New England Tuesday, curtailing businesses and public services. In Cambridge, the city government hit hard by Proposition 2 1 2 struggled to clear the streets.

But through it all. Harvard stayed open. In 1978 when the two-foot storm hit, the University closed down, but this year President Bok refused even to consider shutting down the College. "Kind of makes you proud to be a Harvard [student] doesn't knowing how much we care about your learning," he said.

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Everything in the economy seems to be going up these days -- inflation, unemployment, interest rates. So, in fact, has the workload at the Business School, which has increased by 82 percent in the past two decades. But while the school's administrators may not be able to cope with the problems facing the economy as a whole, they are more confident that they can solve their own problems. The school last month began a substantial overhaul of the curriculum reducing the burden on first and second-year students.

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A crew team coach last week rescued a man who apparently attempted to commit suicide by walking into the icy waters of the Charles River in the late afternoon.