"The kind of people we are looking for have lots of other alternatives," Hayes says. "We find it difficult to draw Black graduates who are offered double salaries and more exciting jobs than working with some old codger."

Hayes also says fewer Blacks have been pursuing doctoral programs in recent years.

"If the trend reverses," Hayes says, "the rising tide will lift us along with the other ships."

"Harvard has to keep the pressure on identifying and attracting the best people who are out there," says McCarthy. But "when they come here, they will leave someplace else...We need to diversify the academy overall."

But officials from the schools contacted say they are making efforts to combat these difficulties and to draw qualified candidates to pursue careers in academia, especially at Harvard.

The "pool problem" should not be used as an excuse for inaction, says Timothy D. Cross, associate dean for finance and administration at the Divinity School.

"I think that's an explanation that has gotten overused historically," says Cross. "People have often said, 'there just aren't enough candidates.' I don't think any of us at Harvard accept that any more."

To combat the pool difficulty, Cross says the Divinity School "does a significant outreach to a wide variety of colleagues" in all faculty searches.

Hayes says the Business School has attempted to increase the poor of candidates by encouraging minorities to apply for admission to the Business School. There is a growing group of minority alumni, Hayes says, which helps to identify colleagues for the school's faculty.

"Mostly they know each other," Hayes says. "It's rare that you hire someone who wasn't identified by a colleague."

And in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, though McCarthy says the pool problem faces officials there as well, all search committees must report efforts to recruit minority and women candidates for professorships.

"The Graduate School [of Arts and Sciences] does work on this very hard," he says, "but to say that is not enough."

Rudenstine's Plans

Rudenstine and Hoyte, both relative newcomers to Harvard, say the administration is working on a number of new initiatives, but how their efforts will differ from their predecessors' still remains unclear.

Rudenstine and Hoyte say they will announce initiatives later this month which will shape Harvard's policy on the issue in the upcoming years. The last five-year plan, new a six-year plan, has not met the goals originally set.