After waiting four months for a response to its offer, Harvard learned yesterday that a Cornell University professor has turned down a tenured position in the Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures.

Professor Sander L. Gilman, a Germanic literature specialist, declined the tenured post offered to him last summer in a letter to Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences A. Michael Spence, citing personal reasons for opting not to come to Harvard.

Gilman said his reasons for not accepting the position had nothing to do with the University.

"It was a very long and difficult decision," said Gilman, who will remain at Cornell. "It was a question of moving into an urban environment, and had very little to do with the departments themselves. I view them both as excellent. [Harvard's] department is one of the best in the country."

The professor said his two children, ages two and seven years, were a great factor in his decision. Gilman's family has lived in Ithaca for 15 years, and he said the quality of life and cost of private education in Boston precluded his acceptance.

An Attractive Offer

"It was an extremely attractive offer," said Gilman, who would have taught in the new humanities curriculum at the medical school. "I was pleased and flattered to be considered, but the private obligation to children and family made it in possible to accept."

"The event was a great disappointment to everybody in the department," said Francke Professor of German Art and Culture Karl S. Guthke.

Guthke, who is also the department's chairman, said he will talk with senior members of the department to select someone else to fill the post. He added that he will talk to Dean Spence after consulting his department.

"Gilman is an outstanding scholar in German literature, comparative literature, and psychology," said Guthke. "He would have contributed to other departments besides the German department."

The offer to Gilman included a position in the department of psychology at the Harvard Medical School.

The tenure post will be offered to other academics in the near future, but Guthke would not specify the qualities the department will be looking for.