Harvard recently offered tenure to four outside sociologist--an unusually broad effort to build up its undersized department, which has had difficulty filling senior positions, officials said yesterday.

One of the scholars, University of Arizona professor Stanley Lieberson--has already turned Harvard down, but the other three are still considering the offers--extended in the late spring. The professors are Aage B. Sorenson and Robert M. Hauser, both of the University of Wisconsin, and Stanford University professor John Meyer.

All four specialize in empirical or quantitative work, a field considered under-represented at Harvard. The University invited three other quantitative scholars to join the department last year, but all of them decide to stay at the universities where they were working.

A Harvard's official--who insisted on anonymity--said that the large number of simultaneous offers was not common but not unprecedented either.

Sociology, in general, is an extremely wide-ranging field prone to battles over such topics as which research methodology is best. At Harvard, this confusion has bred personnel disputes, with professor split over whether to hire empirical specialists, who work often with statistics and computers, or researchers who take a more historical or theoretical approach.

Special Committee

Because of the department's difficulties in hiring and reaching a consensus Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky last year appointed a special committee of inside and outside scholars to advise the department and President Bok, who has final say on all tenure decisions. As well as generating the previous offers, this group was instrumental in forming the current batch department members said yesterday.

Following the three rejections, the department and the ad hoc committee "consensually" drew up a list of about a dozen scholars--all data specialists. Acting Chairman of the Department William Alonso, said yesterday. Such preliminary lists are usually drawn up by departments acting alone.

This list of candidates was approved by a departmental vote, said Alonso, and then professors individually sent letters to Rosovsky appraising the possible appointments. Alonso added that, putting together these letters, "outside opinion," and the advice of the adhoc committee. Bok decided what array of offers to send out, without a formal department vote--usually required in such cases.

"If the department had acted by itself, it probably would have looked about the same," Alonso said. Another department member, Professor of Social Relations Phililp J. Stone added: The whole list was considered acceptable so there's no sense of discontent with the four."

It was the central administration's decision to have the appointments of empiricists before any more theorists professors have said. "It's been Rosovsky's decision," said Stone. "Unless he build up a critical mass of people in the empirical area, he wouldn't be able to recruit," any such researchers, he added.

The desire for such a build up. Alonso explained prompted the large number of tenure offers. Qualitative research requires large resources--like computers--and a batch of researches to do work together with It you get one of these people by themselves the nature of the their work doesn't make sense." he said.

The exact four appointments resulted from "an educated guess" over which people on the original list would work well together, Alonso said, stressing that Harvard hoped that those who accepted the University's offer would build up research teams. Stone added that in negotiating with the scholars offered tenure, Rosovsky "certainly told each person about the other three."

Alonso added that Harvard had not expected each offer to be expected, but was prepared to extend a "hell of a lot of money" to support the large number of resources each of the four would need to set up their research, and which Harvard currently don't have.

Bok and Rosovsky were unavailable for comment yesterday, as were the three scholars still pondering the Harvard offers. Arizona's Lieberson, a specialist in minority relations refused to discuss his rejection of Harvard in favor of a decision to join the faculty at the University of California at Berkely. He said only that the decision was "more matter of personal matters than anything to do with the Harvard department.

Staford's Sociology Department Chairman Joseph Berger, called Mayer "one of the leading young figures in the field." The sociologist, he said, has interests in both quantitative and theory, specializing in topics like organization structure and socialization processes. Stanford "will make a major effort to keep him," he added.

The two Wisconsin sociologists selected are also data specialists. Sorenson, 41 years old, has written more than 40 articles on such topics as operations of labor markets and social mobility, while Hauser, 40, is a leading authority on stratification and social mobility, as well. All four scholars picked are tenured at their respective institutions.

In recent years, the Sociology Department has faced a problem endemic to many Harvard department and which could plague them once again in their current efforts. The University's unusually high standards for tenure often means that it is forced to consider only those candidates who are comfortably established at other institutions and more loathe to move than younger scholars. But Alonso expressed hope, saying the candidates--who have all visited Harvard--"are very strongly interested in the offers.