She last taught in 1981, at the California Institute of the Arts in Valencia, Calif.

"I see my work as part of a continuum," she said. "I'm interested in doing whatever interests me. I oppose rigid, ideological classification."

The decision to become a full- time professor at Harvard was "huge," Phelan said.

"The thing that really appealed to me was idea of being in a position to really create something. That doesn't come down the pike very often."

"Also because I haven't taught in such a long time, I've been in a studio working," she added. "It is very silent, and I feel that at this point in my life I have a lot of things I'd like to teach."

The search for a sculptor has not yet begun, Guzzetti said.

Phelan said that her husband, a noted sculptor, would not be interested in the position but that she "hoped to get him to teach a class."

Phelan, who is in the process of moving into her Cambridge house, said her husband would remain in New York.

Courses Listed

Guzzetti said that the courses Phelan will teach this spring are listed in the Courses of Instruction without an instructor.

VES 20br, "Fundamentals of Painting: Studio Art," and VES 120b, "Landscape Painting: Studio Course," are the two spring classes which do not have instructors listed.

Repeated efforts to reach Christopher D. Killip, the chair of the VES department, were unsuccessful