Assistant Dean of Undergraduate EducationJeffrey Wolcomitz, who controls the InstructionalSupport Budget that funds teaching fellows, saysthe budget has recently grown beyond inflation.

In addition to being content with theirsalaries, graduate students are on the wholesatisfied with their experiences, Maher says.

This year's comprehensive questionnaire of allgraduate students, he says, drew few complaints,although some students lamented the difficultiesof finding teaching jobs.

In response to the complaints, Maherestablished an office in Dudley with matchesgraduate students with available teaching slots.

"I feel that we should not go outside Harvardto have a teaching assistant until we are surethere isn't one inside Harvard," Maher says.

In addition to shortening students' stays atthe University, Maher says Wolff must alsoincrease recruitment of minority and womenstudents. The Graduate School, for example, needsto produce more women natural science scholars,Maher says.

While students at Harvard and elsewhere clamorfor faculty diversity, the Graduate School is, insome ways, under pressure to fill the pool withminority doctoral candidates.

But Maher says that despite recruitmentefforts, minority applications have not risenproportionately to the overall rise in GraduateSchool applicants.

"We're at a stage here where...the pool ofpeople isn't getting larger at a fast enoughrate," Maher says. "It's not popular to point thefinger at undergraduate preparation or highschool, but I'm afraid there's a lot of truth inthat.