Condenzio could not be reached for comment last night. "As far as I know, there's no plans for Lenny to leave," Mayer said.

Students praised Mayer's record at Middlebury.

"You have to loook at what Middlebury is, which is a small liberalarts college for 2,000 kids. For that, I think it's good," said Zachary B. Stillerman, a Middlebury senior who is treasurer of its Student Government Association. "Let me put it this way: I've never gone out of the dining hall hungry."

Mayer directed a renovation of the college's five dining halls, including its largest--Proctor Hall.

Although Mayer himself was rarely the target of student criticism, students have expressed concerns about overcrowding at Proctor--where 60 percent of all students eat--and about the lack of fruit juices, which were removed five years ago by a committee with student representatives to save $40,000 a year.

However, Mayer said Middlebury is exploring options to bring juices back.

"I think we'll probably put the juice back in, because quite frankly it's important to students' health," he said.

Like Harvard, Middlebury has a comprehensive room-and-board fee. Although students pay for 14 meals, they can eat up to 21 each week; the plan does not offer other options.

Partly in response to crowding at Proctor--which can only seat about 500 students at a time--Middlebury is considering adopting a centralized meal system and even a residential-house system similar to Harvard's.

Mayer said he was aware of the student survey on Loker Commons, whose results were released last week, in which students expressed interest in having televisions and fast food. Mayer said he has not had a chance to read the survey results, but said he is interested in exploring fast-food plans similar to the Chick-fil-A, which has a franchise in the Science Center.

Responding to students' preferences will be a top priority, Mayer said.

"Food's a big thing," he said. "It's got to be good, it's got to be nutritious, it's got to be what students want, within reason. Obviously, you can't serve steak and lobster all the time and that's not why you go to Harvard. But I think you have to have the relationship with students to know what they want."

Students are sometimes inconsistent in expressing their demands, Mayer said. Three months ago, he related, a student poll found that students wanted to get rid of Diet Pepsi. After asking students to confirm their choice, Middlebury found that "we got 10 times more responses, saying 'No way.'"

Mayer also directed Middlebury's relationship with the New England Culinary Institute, in which Middlebury chefs received training in exchange for allowing the Vermont school to use its facilities. Harvard has a similar arrangement with Johnson & Wales, a school in Providence, R.I., Mayer noted.

Mayer said he is friends with Berry--his predecessor--whom he met through the National Association of College and University Food Services (NACUFS), a professional group of which they both are members.

Experience

Before joining Middlebury, Mayer worked for 12 years at Seilers/Sodexho Corp., a food-contract management giant based in Waltham, Mass., where Mayer served as regional manager for New England, directing 18 accounts worth $18 million. Prior to that job, he worked at Servomation Corp., a now-defunct Stoneham, Mass., food-service manager.

Mayer grew up in Sheepshead Bay, a neighborhood in Brooklyn, N.Y. He studied business management at City College of New York and received a culinary-arts degree from the Boston School of Cookery.

Mayer plans to move to Cambridge, and he said his wife and three daughters will join him in a year. One of his daughters is a sophomore at Wesleyan University; the others are in the fifth and 10th grades.

--Andrew K. Mandel contributed to the reporting of this story