But understanding the role of science is just a part of the long-term vision that Stone said the search committee is looking for in a candidate.

Stone said the committee has also realized that the new president will have to devote considerable energy to the College.

"Most of us have begun to realize that the College needs some attention in terms of student-faculty ratios, which we've been working on for some time," he said.

Stone said that while the search committee would like to find someone who would serve at least a decade, he or she must be able to see the University's big picture long past that.

Harvard needs "somebody who has a vision for the future," Stone said. "Not ... in 10 years but in 30 years ... to get Harvard started on the path that really will take it to the moon."

Though Stone and Gray emphasized that they are open to all candidates, they acknowledged the trend in American academia towards presidents with previous administrative experience.

"It has become increasingly rare for presidents to be chosen from among those who have never done any administrative work, because the complexity of institutions has grown so much," Gray said.

On the Defensive

Stone said he thought the ongoing presidential searches at Princeton, Brown and other schools would pose no difficulty for Harvard, saying that he felt most candidates would prefer the Harvard job.

"I would hope they would hold up on Brown if they were thinking about it, to see if Harvard didn't fit their future plans better," he said.

Stone said that one Brown administrator has even asked him to speed up the process because prospective presidents might not want to commit to Brown until they were sure they were not being considered for the Harvard post.

Stone and Gray also defended the Corporation's decision not to include students, faculty or staff on the search committee--as is the practice to varying degrees at Princeton and Brown.

"We have 18,000 degree-seeking students," Stone said. "It's very hard to select two or three or four to represent the 18,000, particularly with all the graduate schools."

Stone opened the conference with a defense of the secrecy that surrounds the search process, which he said is necessary to protect both the candidates and those who give their frank advice to the search committee.

"We really want to guard particularly the people we're looking at," he said. "And also, you know, when the people are interviewed we promise them that they won't be reading about themselves in the paper. If they see comments that one told me in a meeting, the others are not going to speak frankly to me."

Indeed, officials at the press conference emphasized that the goals of the search committee and the media are often in conflict.