Harvard announced the makeup of the committee that will search for a successor to Neil L. Rudenstine last week, opening the process for choosing the 27th president of the University.

As in the last search in 1991, the committee is composed of the six members of the Harvard Corporation along with three members of the alumni Board of Overseers.

Robert G. Stone Jr. '45, the senior member of the Corporation, will chair the committee. D. Ronald Daniel, Hanna H. Gray, Conrad K. Harper, James R. Houghton '58 and Herbert S. Winokur '65 round out the Corporation. The three Overseers on the search committee are Sharon E. Gagnon, Thomas E. Everhart '53 and Richard E. Oldenburg '54.

No faculty members, staff or students are official members of the search committee. The search committee will instead solicit opinions from the greater Harvard community by sending out hundreds of thousands of letters to faculty, students and alumni asking for input.

University officials were not surprised about the composition of the search committee.

"The level of national attention and gossip that will surround this search will be enormous, so I am not surprised that the Corporation will be restricting the committee to a few people at high levels," wrote Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 in an e-mail message.

But Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said the letter writing process that the search committee will use makes the search open to anyone who wants to express an opinion.

"This group will, as last time, consult very widely indeed, and solicit the views of many individuals and groups," Knowles wrote in an e-mail message. "Because of this extremely scrupulous and careful process, I am sure that all voices, whether of faculty or students, will be heard."