This is the second of two articles profiling the top contenders for the dean of the Faculty's post.

The race for dean of the Faculty shows no signs of stopping at least as far as President Bok would have people know.

Bok who has almost complete say over the selection of a new dean. Says he has assembled a list of about a half-dozen finalists, but he refuses to say who they are or when he will announce the decision.

The position which is widely considered the second most powerful on the Harvard campus will be vacated in July when Henry Resovsky steps down to resume his teaching and research on Japanese economic history.

Thus far campus gossip about the search has seemed to focus on seven professors on the Faculty though no one except Bok appears to have any inside knowledge about the possible candidates.

They are Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn. Professor of Biology John E. Dowling '57. Houghton Professor of Chemistry Jeremy R. Knowles. Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C Martin '51. Burbank Professor of Political Economy and Director of the Harvard Institute for International Development Dwight H. Perkins. Dillon Professor of International Affairs and Associate Dean of the Faculty for Undergraduate Education Sidney Verba '53 and Shattuck Professor of Government James Q Wilson.

Profiles follow of four of these professors. Baylin, Dowling, Perkins and Wilson.

BAILYN, Bernard

"I think I'm one of the suspects that is usually rounded up," laughs Adams University Professor Bernard Bailyn when asked if he's thought about becoming dean of the Faculty But Bailyn. One of academia's most prominent American historians is quick to dismiss the idea.

Other professors and administrators on the Faculty haven't though and the reason is simple. Even in a body of scholars as luminous as Harvard's. Bailyn stands out in intellectual eminence.

A professor at Harvard since 1949, Bailyn--or "But," as he is known to friends--has written or edited more than a dozen books documenting the history of the American revolutionary and colonial eras. One book, "The Ideological Origins of the American Revolution," won a Pulitzer Prize: another. "The Ordeal of Thomas Hutchinson," won a National Book Award.

In more than thirty years of teaching, Bailyn has had a fair amount of influence on a generation of Americanist. As Winthrop Professor of History Stephan A. Thernstrom puts it. "His students beyond all debate dominate the field of American colonial and revolutionary history."

But beyond his teaching and research, Bailyn is said to be influential in the Faculty at large--not by carrying a high profile in committees and on the Faculty floor notes one University Hall official as much as by being a substantial figure of counsel in the back rooms.

One general area in which Bailyn has been openly active and influential is that of the liberal arts curriculum. Which is somewhat ironic given the scholar's reputation of inaccessibility to undergraduates. In the 1960s for example, Bailyn was a prominent member of the so-called Doty Committee that unsuccessfully reviewed the General Education Program.

More recent and more fruitful was Bailyn's crucial role as a conciliatory figure in the development of the Core Curriculum, which he had originally opposed. The current Historical Study requirement and offerings can be attributed largely to Bailyn's intensive work in 1977 and 1978. He teaches one of the offerings himself. Historical Study B-31. "The Revolutionary Transformation of America."