That is, however, about all they agree on. Some officials, for instance, assess performance by meeting with an employee before reaching a firm decision. Others opt for the love-it-or-leave-it approach, informing an employee of his new salary only after setting it.

The personnel office recommends the former approach, and director Cantor says he follows that advice. So does Administrative Vice President Robert H. Scott, who describes the determination of his aides' salaries as "a give and take process. I will tell the person how well I think a person is doing a job, and he will tell me. "Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 follows suit, and Epps says he meets with his staff frequently enough that there are rarely salary surprises. According to UHS deputy director Sholem Postel--whose $73,890 salary in 1980-1981 was the fifth-highest in the University. Wacker also initiates salary talks with his aides.

On the other hand, Bok prefers to tell deans and vice presidents of their forthcoming wages "after the fact." O'Brien also shuns preliminary talks, preferring to use "internal benchmarks" within the University--as well as talks with knowledgeable colleagues--to settle an employee's salary. And Melissa D. Gerrity, associate dean of the Faculty for financial affairs, says that "Generally, people don't call someone into an office and say, 'This is what I'm thinking about. 'They say "This is what you're going to get'" Wage determination at Harvard, she adds, "is just like a business a salary is determined and told to the individual."

One thing is certain decisions are final, except in the cases of alleged discrimination. "Occasionally, people think they should've gotten a little more, but that's part of the complexities of the world. Unless you're really upset, you just sit there and swallow it," the $71,000-a-year O'Brien elaborates, adding with a laugh, "I mean, I think Derek should pay me twice as much, but what can I do?"

Whether or not Bok is stingy with his deputies, few doubt that he is tough on himself come salary time. During his first few years as President, Bok recalls, he asked the Corporation not to raise his salary. "They were tough times for the University, and people had to tighten our belts."

Eventually, he says, he consented to small annual salary hikes, "under heavy pressure from some people who said that implicitly this [self-imposed salary freeze] might constrict other people's salaries." Today the president refuses to accept any salary increase greater than that accorded the Faculty, he says.

"We do not think we are paying him what he is worth," says Corporation member Hugh Calkins '45. "But people don't take the presidency of Harvard University with the goal of getting a large salary.' Bok, in fact, has a certain amount of independent wealth, as the scion of an affluent Philadelphia family.

Though Bok has currently fallen from the top five salary list for the first time since the 1976-1977 school year, he continues to enjoy the most significant perquisites of any Harvard administrator a University owned house and limousine University officials unanimously play down the significance of Bok's rarely used automotive perk. Scott calls it an "inexpensive taxi" and in fact, Bok is known for driving to work in a well worn Volkswagen.

His plush house on 33 Elmwood Ave in Cambridge, however, makes Bok one of just three University officials living rent-free in Harvard-owned homes aside from House masters according to O'Brien and Cantor. (Minister of Memorial Church Rev. Peter J. Gomes and Divinity School Dean George E. Rupp, who live at 21 Kirkland St. and 44 Francis Ave., respectively, are the others.) Many administrators say privately that Bok's home is the only reason his salary is not significantly higher--or at least above Rosovsky's.

Indeed, Bok and Rosovsky's decisions regarding University-owned property provide an interesting contrast. Appointed president in 1971, Bok turned down the traditional President's quarters at 17 Quincy St., across from Lamont Library. One administrator explains Bok's reasoning: "If you became the President of Harvard in 1971 and you had little children and you had just been through the past four years of violent student protest, would you move into a house on campus?"

As it turned out, Bok opted for 33 Elmwood, the traditional residence of the Dean of the Faculty. (The University's original charter requires its president to live in Cambridge.) The financial advantage of the University-owned home is clearly great, but as one official observes, the requirement that the President entertain in his official residence can prove a drawback, "If I had to have someone to dinner every night," he says, "I would consider it a cost."

Rosovsky, by contrast, opted to continue living in his Newton home. He entertains official guests, as it happens, in the 17 Quincy St. home of past presidents. "I'm very happy where I am." Rosovsky says. "I didn't really want to get used to a certain lifestyle and then hang on to that lifestyle just because I was used to it." Rosovsky's decision to forego a University home, like Bok's self-imposed salary freeze before it, was occasioned largely by budgetary factors: "I really did not want to do anything that would appear luxurious." Moreover, for Rosovsky's personal finances, giving up his house only to have to purchase another one a decade or so later would have been an expensive move.

Rosovsky's still-undetermined successor--the dean announced last month he will step down next summer--will have the opportunity Rosovsky passed up Midway through the current dean's tenure, the Faculty obtained a residence on Bryan St., Rosovsky says, because "I was really quite certain that my successor would want a house."

Yet if there is one presumption underlying the entire process of administrative compensation, it is that in a university setting, the salaries of officialdom can never be made a higher priority than those of Faculty. Even administrators with no Faculty experience quickly stress that Harvard's tenured Faculty is paid as well as any and better than most, and that that fact matters most of them. As Bok himself notes, in a study of administrative salaries. "We would make a decent showing, but I do not believe we would be number one, the way we are with faculty."

Bok turned down the traditional President's quarters at 17 Quincy St., opting instead to live at 33 Elmwood. Explains one administrator, "If you became the President of Harvard in 1971 and you had little children and you had just been through the past four years of violent student protest, would you move into a house on campus?"