--tried to tear down a 93-year-old building at 8-10 Mt. Auburn Street, evicting rent-control tenants whose right to remain is still being thrashed out in the courts.

--tried to exempt the Craigie Arms apartment building on Mt. Auburn Street from rent control. The structure--since replaced by a modern development--was allowed to run down until its broken intercom system allowed two men to enter an apartment and rape a tenant.

--has made a practice of selling off medium-sized houses under rent control to small land-lords who in turn qualify under the city code to evict rent-control tenants.

THESE EXAMPLES are only the most publicized ones. They represent a pattern of cutting corners and stretching the law. Often this pattern hurts the University's finances and its public image almost as much as the tenants or students involved.

Harvard's administrators should not bring Zeckhauser closer to the academic side of Harvard. And she's done too much damage to Harvard's relations with the outside community to deserve even greater influence in dealings with Cambridge and Boston.

By giving her this position, the top levels of Harvard's administration would show that they like Zeckhauser's way of doing business. Let's hope they don't.