Members of the presidential search committee held a series of meetings with groups of students late last week.

Representatives of the secretive group that will pick Harvard's next president spoke with about 25 students over cookies in Adams House and scrambled eggs and bacon at the Faculty Club.

In the largest event, search committee chair Robert G. Stone Jr. '45 and search committee member James R. Houghton '58 met with about 15 members of the Phi Beta Kappa academic honor society on Friday morning.

The meeting focused on undergraduate academics and student life. Issues discussed included the Core program, advising, student activism, interdisciplinary programs, the need for a student center and the relationship of the administration with the student body, participants said.

The students also described the leadership qualities they would like to see in a Harvard president as well as the need for strong female candidates for the post. Houghton said the pool of eligible women is small, according to some students at the breakfast.

The previous evening, Stone and Houghton met with Undergraduate Council President Fentrice D. Driskell '01 and four House committee chairs in the Adams House Lower Common Room.

Though all of the House committee chairs were invited to attend, only Katherine A. Murphy '01 and Michael S. Weidman '01 of Adams, Nancy M. Poon '01 of Dunster and Michael E. Thakur '01 of Quincy were able to attend.

In a wide-ranging discussion about the priorities the new president should have, the students mentioned faculty diversity and said that they would like to see the size of the faculty increase.

The students also said they hoped the new president would give additional funding to House committees.

Before the meeting, Stone ate dinner in Adams dining hall, where he reviewed a letter Driskell and others had sent to the search committee.

On Friday morning, search committee member Herbert S. "Pug" Winokur Jr. '64-'65 met with about six members of the Graduate Student Council down the hall from the Phi Beta Kappa breakfast at the Faculty Club.

The discussion focused on issues of importance to graduate students: housing, financial aid, faculty support and advising, according to participants.

Students who met with the committee members said yesterday that they were pleased that the group was interested in their opinions.

"I felt that they were very receptive and were genuinely interested in what we had to say," said Dorothy Weiss '01, who sat next to Stone at the Phi Beta Kappa breakfast. "They responded well, and we definitely had the impression that they were being very thorough."

But another student at the breakfast said that although the committee was interested in what the students were saying, they also seemed to have their own priorities.

"It seemed like they were getting a sense of what issues students were interested in just so they could have that knowledge in mind when they dealt with the issues that they really cared about," said the student, who spoke on the condition that his name not be used.

--Staff writer Joshua E. Gewolb can be reached at gewolb@fas.harvard.edu. Staff writer Vasugi V. Ganeshananthan can be reached at vganesh@fas.harvard.edu.

--Garrett M. Graff contributed to the reporting of this story.