A former New York Times executive and four corporate CEOs are among the eight nominees on the ballot for the Board of Overseers' five openings, the Harvard Alumni Association (HAA) announced Wednesday.

The Board, one of the University's two governing bodies, is responsible for approving the major decisions of its more powerful counterpart, the Corporation. The 30 Overseers meet at least five times per year, advising the University's president and influencing its long-term policies.

A 15-member HAA Nominating Committee selected the eight candidates from a pool of about 220, according to the committee's report.

Nominee Paul M. Weissman '52, managing director emeritus of Bear Stearns & Co., is an investment banker with an MBA degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

A former resident of Dunster House, Weissman was a social relations concentrator during his years at Harvard. He was captain of the first-year and varsity golf teams and participated in Phillips Brooks House.

In an interview yesterday, Weissman said he has been active in alumni affairs since his graduation. His class committee appointed him Class Agent, or chief fundraiser, a post he has held for 43 years.

For the past three years, Weissman has served as chair of the Harvard College Fund, leading that body through the first stages of the University's $2.1 billion capital campaign. And eight years ago, he was president of the HAA.

Weissman was also on the Board of Trustees of the Hopkins Grammar School, and is currently vice chair of the Board of Trustees of New London's Connecticut College.

Weissman declined to specify what his priorities as an Overseer would be, saying only that he would outline his positions in his statement for the ballot.

But Claire Richardson Bennett '49, an Overseers nominee who graduated from Radcliffe and studied at the Graduate School of Design for a year, was quick to pinpoint her top priority.

Bennett, who was national president of the American Society of Landscape Architects in 1990-91, said in an interview yesterday that she wants to see closer relationships between Harvard's fiercely independent graduate schools.

"A lot of students wind up going down to MIT because of this every tub on its own bottom [situation]," Bennett said. "I believe [President Neil L.] Rudenstine is trying to change that, and I support that."

Bennett, a resident of Indianapolis, is president and founder of the landscape architecture firm Claire Bennett Associates. By appointment of the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, she is currently serving on the advisory council of the National Urban Forestry Program.

She has also been active in alumni affairs, having served as president of Indiana's Radcliffe Club and its Harvard Club. Bennett was vice president of Radcliffe's Board of Management at the time when the school decided to merge with Harvard. And she was director of the HAA from 1977-80.

Still, she said, "I haven't done anything with Harvard since 1980."

Bennett grew up in Arlington and commuted to Radcliffe for four years. She said she did "a little peripheral" work for the Lampoon during her undergraduate years.

Sharon Elliott Gagnon, on the other hand, didn't even spend her college days in Cambridge. Gagnon received her bachelor's degree in 1962 from Indiana University, but went on to earn her master's and Ph.D. in Romance Languages from Harvard.

Gagnon said in an interview yesterday that she is interested in how technological advances "mesh with education."

"In terms of how students think, that should not be lost in technological advances," Gagnon said.

Gagnon is president of the University of Alaska's chief governing body, the Board of Regents, a role in which she oversees 12 campuses and 30,000 students.

Before receiving that appointment, she taught "off and on" at both the University of Alaska and Alaska Pacific University. She also presently serves on the Board of Trustees for Russia's International Pedagogical University. And she is just finishing a one-year term as president of the HAA.

Gagnon, a French literature specialist, was a teaching fellow in French language courses during her graduate years. She was a proctor in Matthews Hall in the summer of 1966. Her son Elliott is a senior at the College, and her daughter Anne graduated in 1993.

In addition to Weissman, Richardson and Gagnon, the new nominees include: John C. Baldwin '71, chair of the department of Surgery at Baylor College of Medicine; Peter C.B. Bynoe '72, chair and CEO of the Chicago-based Telemat, Ltd.; John R. Harrison '55, a former corporate vice president of The New York Times Company; Lisa Marie Henson '82, president of Columbia Pictures; and Terrence Murray '62, chair, president and CEO of the Providence-based Fleet-Norstar Financial Group. They did not return phone calls from The Crimson yesterday.

All Harvard alumni will have the opportunity to vote on the Overseers by mail this spring. The five appointees, who will serve six-year terms, will be announced at Commencement