Imagine a billion dollars.

Four thousand cubic feet of money, according to U.S. Treasury officials. Enough single dollar bills to circle the Earth nine times at the equator.

With that kind of money, the University could buy every undergraduate a top-of-the-line, fully loaded Mercedes-Benz 600 SEL.

And President Neil L. Rudenstine hopes to raise nearly twice that amount during the next six or seven years--the largest fund drive in the history of higher education.

Harvard administrators are reluctant to speculate on precise goals for the long-expected capital campaign. Their most recent estimates--significantly less than the $2.5 billion ballpark figure under discussion just a few months ago--could be indicative of growing concerns about the obstacles such an enormous campaign will face.

But Harvard insiders say they are not making predictions simply because Rudenstine has not yet set an exact target. They point out that the president continues to meet, as he has over the past year, with top deans and vice presidents to assess the University's long-term needs and set an official goal.

Still, work on the campaign has already begun and an official announcement is expected near the start of the 1993 academic year.

Many say the timing is less than ideal.

The kickoff will likely occur in the midst of a continuing national eco- Snomic downturn and in the wake of severalwidely-publicized financial scandals at thenation's elite universities.

It will come on the heels of billion dollarcampaigns at other universities--including MIT,Stanford, Yale and the University ofPennsylvania--that could draw major donors awayfrom Harvard.

In addition, some educators are attacking thevery concept of universities holding mammothcapital campaigns.

Peter M. Buchanan, president of the Council forAdvancement and Support of Education (CASE), saidat the group's annual conference in July thatlarge fund drives shift a university's focus to"money rather than education."

Buchanan, the former vice president fordevelopment at Columbia, told the group thatcapital campaigns are "the dumbest thing I think Ihave ever seen."

But fundraisers at several universities disputeBuchanan's argument, and Harvard's fundraisingchiefs remain optimistic about their prospectsdespite the awkward timing.

"I don't think there is ever a good time, butit would have been nicer to raise it in theeighties, probably," says Peter L. Malkin '55, amember of the Board of Overseers and a majorcontributor to the University.

"It's going to be difficult to raise it nowbecause of the economy. But I think people will bevery convinced by the case that will be presentedabout what the University really [needs]. I thinkthe case will be very persuasive."

Thomas M. Reardon, director of the University'sOffice of Development, says the economic climateis not necessarily indicative of Harvard'sfundraising potential. He points out that theUniversity raised $206 million last year alone,the highest total in its history.

Reardon says the University will be able topresent a persuasive argument to donors based onthe rising costs of maintaining academicexcellence.

"I think the campaign is the result of arigorous academic review of what Harvard [will be]about over the next decade or more," Reardon says."It is not just the sense of, 'Let's see how muchmoney we can raise and what we can do with it.It's just the opposite."

University officials say the money will be usedfor endowing professorships, funding academicprograms and research, renovating and constructingbuildings, restoring library collections,supporting financial aid programs and building theendowment.

Laying the Groundwork

Although officials are not identifying specificprojects yet, they are already laying thegroundwork for the campaign. Rudenstine has beennetworking with wealthy alumni across the countryand development officers are in the process ofbuilding a nucleus fund of donations.

Such a preliminary fund--which the experts calla "kitty"--is a standard part of most majorcapital campaigns and usually amounts toapproximately 30 percent of the anticipated total.

Progress on building the nucleus fund will giveRudenstine an idea of how much money Harvard canexpect to raise over an additional five years, andallow him to kickoff the campaign with a sizableportion of the total already in hand.

"Gift discussions have begun with...some alumniwho have been closely involved with theUniversity," says Reardon.

Vice President for Alumni Affairs Fred L. Glimp'50 says the University has already secured "afew" multi-million dollar pledges.

In addition, the development office hasorganized four task forces--made up of Harvarddevelopment officials and headed by Reardon andGlimp--to coordinate planning efforts across theUniversity and report to the centraladministration.

The committees will develop recommendations forrunning the more technical aspects of thecampaign: organizing a computerized informationsystem on donors and donations, laying outspecific themes of the campaign for the variousdivisions of the University, determining thefeasibility of the campaign's goals, and designingthe worldwide network of alumni volunteers.

Planners agree that individual alumni, asopposed to large corporations or charitablefoundations, will form the backbone of the effort.

"You tend to go back to the people who've beennice to you," says veteran fundraiser and longtimedonor Ernest Monrad '51. "The alumni will be theclue to this. I'm willing to bet that 80 percentof the money will come from the alumni."

And that means Harvard's fundraisers won't haveto worry as much about simultaneous fund drives atother universities.

"I would think that our community of supporterswould be somewhat distinct from others and whenthere would be some opportunity for overlap weshould be competitive," says Vice President forFinance Robert H. Scott. "But we have the bestschool and therefore the best opportunity toattract donors."

Other Harvard officials say that thecompetition for donations is, in fact, minimal.And they deny critics' charges that universitiescompete with each other to have the largestcapital campaigns.

"I don't think that in landing on this numberthat they're going to make it higher than [that ofanother university] simply to make it higher,"says John P. Reardon '60, executive director ofthe Harvard Alumni Association.

Stanford's Associate Vice President forDevelopment Stephen Peeps adds that schools oftensee a successful fund drive by another school as asign that they too can raise more money.

"There has been a kind of pace-settingatmosphere to all this," says Peeps, who helpedmanage Stanford's recent five-year, $1.2 billioncapital campaign. "It raises the sights foreverybody. That's different, I think, thancompeting with each other. It has the effect ofsetting a new benchmark."

Other fundraising experts suggest that highstakes campaigns can force an institution likeHarvard to set higher goals, if only to maintainits reputation.

"There's a perception that you have to be atcertain levels to be playing the big leagues,"says Frederick C. Nahm, senior vice president forplanning and development at the University ofPennsylvania.

But Harvard officials emphasize that they areworking on setting realistic goals, not shatteringfundraising records.

After all, they say, any amount even close tothe $2 billion dollar goal being considered willput Harvard's last capital campaign record--$350million, set in 1986--to shame.

"Did you ever hear what Senator Everett Dirksenonce said?" asks Scott. "He said, 'A billion here,a billion there, and pretty soon you're talkingabout real money.' "

Gady A. Epstein and Ira E. Stoll contributedto the reporting of this story.