"Certainly the issue of who will have access to higher education and the effect of cuts on people with less money and minorities, will be one of the major issues he'll be facing," says Steiner, University vice president and general counsel.

Both Shattuck and Steiner point to affirmative action as another troublespot likely to consume much of the new vice president's efforts. Under Shattuck's direction, the Office of Government and Community Affairs will push for legislation to allocate more funds for minorities and women in Ph.D. programs, with hopes of increasing the representation of these groups on the University faculty.

"John has an excellent record on affirmative action in his own office and that will be helpful to us," Steiner remarks.

Colleagues and government officials who have collaborated with Shattuck on various commissions and issues praise his leadership skills and enormous capacity for work.

"John can put together coalitions with a lot of different voices in them," says Burton Whides '62, counsel to Senator Edward M. Kennedy '54 (D-Mass.). "He's respected by a broad spectrum of senators."

"He's a consensus builder. He knows how to get people to work together from disparate constituencies," adds Neas of the Leadership Conference.

And though he has spent more than 13 years in the nation's capital, Shattuck still has plenty of grassroots experience, some dating back to the days of Vietnam and the popularly supported Presidential candidacy of former Minnesota Sen. Eugene McCarthy More recently. Shattuck was the architect of a national bill of rights lobby designed to counter the efforts of the Moral Majority. The organization boasts 15,000 members inchapters all over the country.

Aside from targeting certain areas in which to concentrate his efforts, Shattuck is reluctant to map out a specific agenda of actions he plans to take. Until he moves into the job full-time beginning July 1, he will be commuting once or twice a week to Cambridge from Washington, where his wife and three children live.

Shattuck stresses the need for Harvard to improve its relations with the outside world at all levels: the local, the state and the national. He places particular emphasis on improving relations with Cambridge. He cites as an example the university's current efforts to retrain local teachers in science and math and to provide access to computers for Cambridge schools. "My proposal is to start with the local area and work out from there," he says adding. "This is an area where Harvard can be a leader."