Other possibilities

Just because the two most prominent women candidates have taken themselves out of the running, does not mean the search committee has no women to choose from.

"I would assume that Harvard would be very open to women candidates," says John Chandler, a senior consultant with Academic Search Consulting Service.

One such possibility is current Stanford Law School Dean Kathleen M. Sullivan. She is a Harvard Law School alumna and served as a professor at Harvard Law School. She has even made appearances in Cambridge since her 1999 appointment at Stanford, giving the first in a series of lectures inaugurating Radcliffe College's reorganization as the Radcliffe Institute.

But, unlike the two other women, she has only served in her current position for a limited time and would find it difficult to leave.

An individual who has served as an Overseer and knows Sullivan personally told The Crimson in June, "She's marvelous... but I'm not sure she wouldn't be miscast. I'm not sure it's the right use for her extraordinary skills." This person suggested the United States Supreme Court as a more viable option.

Two other women mentioned for the position, Donna E. Shalala and Condoleezza Rice, are both well known in the political and academic arena.

Shalala, the current secretary of health of human services, was chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Madison for seven years. Rice, who served as provost of Stanford from 1993 to 1999, is now a chief foreign policy advisor in the George W. Bush campaign and likely to become a chief presidential advisor to Bush if he is wins the election.