Gladu also praised what HDS has become under Berry.

"I was able to look at some of the literature, and I think that what has been done there has been very innovative and creative and perhaps a little aggressive," he said.

Ted Mayer, dining services chief at Middlebury College, also refused to confirm that he is in the running for the job.

"I don't know if I'm a finalist, so I really can't say anything about it at this point," Mayer said yesterday.

Mayer refused to answer further questions.

Also reportedly on the short list is director of the University of Maine's dining services, John Lewis.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 refused to comment on the report. Vice President for Administration Nancy H. "Sally" Zeckhauser, who will pick the new HDS director, did not return phone calls yesterday.

Sources within HDS and close to the committee have said that students and administrators are largely satisfied with the status quo in HDS.

Under Berry's leadership, HDS became a top-flight college dining program, claiming the 1996 Ivy Award for the best non-commercial food service in the country.

Berry himself won the national Silver Plate Award as the outstanding food-services professional at colleges and universities. In his five years at Harvard, he became known as the "Mealtime Messiah" among students.

Because of Berry's success, observers have said that the next HDS director should be someone who can help maintain the standard Berry set.

The search committee will meet tonight to discuss first impressions of the candidates, a source said. After the conversations, the committee may continue to interview candidates, although this list of five was whittled down by administrators from a higher number, committee member Rudd W. Coffey '97 said last week.

In an interview yesterday, Lewis responded to charges from students on the HDS search committee that they are being excluded in some ways from participating fully in the selection process.

The students said they did not receive resumes and recommendations of candidates they interviewed, were informed just one working day before interviews were to start and were embarrassed by Lewis in front of one of the candidates. In addition, the students said they received no instructions on the committee's charge and degree of confidentiality, and Coffey said that when the meetings began, he wasn't informed.

Lewis said he has always defended the role of students in the search process.

"From the first point where I became involved...one of the first things I raised was the importance and the value of getting student input," Lewis said yesterday.

The dean said his office did not handle the distribution of resumes and recommendations and that he also had been informed only one working day before the interviews began.

Lewis said he was "completely mystified" to learn that he had humiliated the students in front of one of the candidates, saying he did not recall the incident in question and denying that any affront was intentional