Green is already planning to spend a year or more on an intensive study of the economics of higher education. He plans to write a series of papers comparing universities and examining the output of higher education, rising tuitions, research and its funding, and financial aid.

Of course, Green will be more than Rudenstine's chief economic adviser. He'll advise and help the president on everything from race relations to environmental studies.

While still teaching economics during the past semester, Green has been putting in increasing hours at Mass Hall in an effort to learn the job.

"I'm trying to help the president as much as I can with all the things that come across his desk," Green says.

For example, Green met with students from minority groups who came to see the president during the spring's controversy over race relations.

Green has also been working to coordinate inter-faculty cooperation on a number of academic subjects.

Rudenstine says Green's appointment is a "signal" of organizing and running the institution "in a more interwoven and collaborative way...on the issues where it makes sense."

Says Green, "I've been pretty active in trying to find out who the right people are, how these activities are currently financed, what would constitute the best way of getting inter-faculty cooperation, in a genuine way, not just putting a label on a bunch of activities that we already do."

He is working closely with the new University-wide committee on environmental studies, and is exploring similar opportunities for cooperation in the study of heath care policy, human behavior, democratic institutions and education.

The goal, according to Green, is "changing the nature of the interaction so that it becomes really beneficial."

When Rudenstine first began talking about creating the provost post, some feared that another administrator would add to what the Time article called "bureaucratic bloat: a selfperpetuating nomenklatura of assistant deans, development officers and other office-bound personnel."

But Green says that he's been received warmly, and that Rudenstine smoothed the way for him.

Asked about bureaucratic bloat, outgoing Vice President General Counsel Daniel Steiner jokes, "Really. "I'm quite thin, I think."

Steiner says virtually every university Harvard's size has a provost. "Compared to other universities, we are certainly not overstaffed," Steiner says.

While other universities have associate provosts and vice-provosts galore, Green says he plans to hire only a single administrative assistant.

So far, at least, concerns about bureaucratic bloat seem unwarranted. When Green moves into Mass Hall for good, Harvard deans and faculty will likely see not another bureaucrat, but an academic chosen to redirect his scholarly skills to help run the institution where he was once a teaching professor.