President Bok told the Board of Overseers yesterday that he had chosen a new Dean of the Faculty to replace Henry Rosovsky at the end of the year, a board member said last night.

Overseer Arthur T. Lyman '42 said Bok's report on the Dean search was a highlight of yesterday's meeting and that a formal announcement would be made "within two or three days." Neither Lyman or several other Overseers reached last night would reveal who the new dean would be.

Rosovsky refused to comment last night. Bok could not be reached for comment.

Bok effectively has final by over filling what is widely considered Harvard's second most important administrative position, which Rosovsky will quit this summer to return to the teaching and research of Japanese economics.

But a special committee of members of the governing Corporation and Board of Overseers must formally approve the decision. The Corporation is scheduled to meet today.

University sources said last week that the chairman of the Economics Department. A. Michael Spence, is apparently a leading candidate for the deanship. Spence refused comment last week, and could not be reached for comment last night.

Other names that have circulated in Faculty gossip concerning the dean search include Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education Sidney Verba '53, Houghton Professor of Chemistry Jeremy R. Knowles, and Dean of the Division of Applied Sciences Paul C. Martin '51.

It has also been rumored that Bok has received at least one turndown in his search, which has been going on since last May, when Rosovsky announced his intention to resign at the end of the current academic year. Harvard Treasurer George Putnam '49, a member of the Corporation, said last week, "One, I think, turned it down."