In a stunning move, Vice President for Finance Allen J. Proctor '74 unexpectedly announced his resignation yesterday, effective April 8.

Proctor had served in his current position for a mere 17 months. He was appointed in October 1994 after a 13-month search by President Neil L. Rudenstine.

The outgoing vice president said yesterday that he left primarily because he had difficulties adjusting to the decentralized management structure of the University.

"The number of people involved in a decision here is large and variable," Proctor said. "I'm not comfortable in that kind of environment. I'm not patient enough."

At the time of Proctor's appointment, however, University officials said they felt Proctor would adjust well to a decentralized structure.

Vice President James H. Rowe III '73 told The Crimson in 1994 that Proctor had demonstrated a remarkable capacity for reconciling differences of opinion while working as a New York City budget guru.

"He's very astute at working under pressure and forming consensus views," Rowe said at the time.

Sources have told The Crimson in the past that Proctor has had difficulty getting along with members of his staff and has created unrest throughout the University with his aggressive budget-cutting.

One of Harvard's chief financial officers, Proctor will depart in the middle of the University's $2.1 billion capital campaign, a fundraising drive whose scope is unprecedented in higher education.

The departure also comes in the middle of the University's massive Administrative Data Project (ADP), an attempt to improve the quality and consistency of information and the efficiency of its transactions. Proctor was intimately involved in the planning stages of the project, which will not be completed until the next decade.

Proctor will be leaving his job in three weeks, a far shorter notice than most other top University officials have given. Even former provost Jerry R. Green, who resigned partially in disgust over Rudenstine's lack of focus and vision for the University, stayed on more than two months after he announced his departure.

A Bad Fit?

Last night, Proctor said that while he knew Harvard's management would not be as hierarchical, he did not know the extent to which it is decentralized or how he would adjust to it before he started working here.

When he accepted the position in 1994, however, Proctor said he was enthusiastic about working in a decentralized environment.

"I endorse the every tub on its own bottom approach that Harvard uses," he told The Crimson on September 21 of that year.