National political columnist George Will once told students at Harvard that they should do every thing Kenan Professor of Government Harvey C. Mansfield '53 told them to do.

Now those students can get instructions from Will himself.

"It's not bad advice," Will said yesterday of the recommendation he gave students two years ago. "But I had to often that advice when I wasn't there. Now they can listen to me and do everything I say...Just kidding."

Will, now a visiting lecturer in the Government Department, will be teaching Government 1091: Liberalism and Conservatism in American Politics with Mansfield and Professor of Government Michael J. Sandel.

The course, which meets in Lowell Lecture Hall on Fridays from 2 to 4 p.m., will apply political philosophy to examine recent controversies in politics.

"That's what I do for a living," Will said in a phone interview from Washington yesterday.

"I try to find the kernels of philosophical interest in everyday political argument The arguments we're having in Washington today are rich with such kernels," he said.

The three instructors will teach the first and last lectures of the semester together. The middle nine lectures will be taught by the professors individually on a rotating basis.

"They will all be here every Friday," said head teaching fellow Benjamin Berger. "The other two will be sitting to the side making snide comments.

"All three will have microphones," he said. "It will be a free-for-all."

Will is planning to lecture on "Big Government and the National Idea," "Statecraft as Soulcraft, Then and Now" and "Federalism and Its Critics." He will hold office hours on Fridays.

Will said he contributed to the planning of the course "as someone who's respectful of the fact that these two have taught much more than I, therefore trying to fit in without disrupting what they have established."

He said he was particularly interested in including changing views of the presidency in the course.

"My feeling is that the presidency today is becoming a miniaturized and marginalized office, and as such is returning to something like the constitutional norm of American history." Will said yesterday. "Congres- sional autonomy has been the norm.

"The Wilsonian, Rooseveltian, Johnsonian model of the president as the articulator of the unarticulated national yearnings and the writer of the national agenda is problematic and probably unhealthy and definitely unusual," he continued.

A final syllabus will not be available until the first class meeting tomorrow. But according to Berger, the requirements will be "fairly light." The course requires two seven-page papers and a final exam.

The eight books on the reading list will include works by Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John Calhoun, Frederick Douglass and W.E.B. DuBois. Students will also read several Supreme Court cases and excerpts from presidential speeches.

The course heads are preparing for anywhere between 200 to 500 students. According to Berger, the class will not be lotteried unless more than 500 people enroll.

"We also have Science Center B, which accommodates up to 500," Berger said. "The monkey wrench is the timing. It could be a problem for people with varsity athletics."

Teaching fellows have expressed concern that upperclass study cards are due an hour after the first class meeting.

"Students need a little more time," said teaching fellow Joel L. Kurtzberg '91. "It really gives students only one hour to leave our class, make the decision about what to take, get their study card signed and turn it in. It really doesn't seem reasonable."

Kurtzberg said the study card deadline might affect class enrollment, but that there are no plans to end the class early.

"I really don't think the burden should be on us because Harvard has set up an unreasonable time to have study cards due," he said.

In response to those concerns, registrar Georgene Herschbach said that students could turn in their study cards at the registrar's office, 20 Garden St., if they don't have enough time to return to their houses.

"There's time between four and five to do that," Herschbach said. "We're always happy to resolve these [problems]. We basically want study cards. We want to enroll students, and we want to tell faculty members the next morning who's enrolled.