The committee also pursued candidates in more traditional ways. In late September, the search committee even placed a want ad in the New York Times: “Wanted: President, Harvard University.” In smaller letters underneath, a blurb explained the job: “Nominations and applications are invited for the presidency of Harvard University. The successful candidate is expected to be a person of high intellectual distinction and demonstrated leadership qualities. Letters and supporting material may be sent to the Harvard University Presidential Search Committee.”

To compile all of this information, the committee turned to the Corporation’s secretary, Marc L. Goodheart ’81. Committee members considered him “very able” and perhaps even more importantly, “discreet.” Goodheart was accustomed to the secrecy of the Corporation. He assembled a team of three staffers at the Corporation’s Loeb House headquarters to sort through the incoming mail and prepare binders upon binders of material to be shipped off to the search committee members. His office handled travel arrangements for search committee members and eventually for candidates as well. He was in charge of prepping for and taking minutes at Corporation meetings throughout the search.

“I’m not sure Marc stopped writing during the entire search,” one committee member laughed.

Goodheart or a member of his staff also accompanied committee members to many of their interviews across the nation, although eventually, as the process progressed, committee members conducted the interviews entirely in private. At the beginning, Goodheart was left to interview some of Harvard’s top administrators on his own, including Vice President for Administration Sally H. Zeckhauser.

“He’s very discreet, so you know when you’re working on something confidential, it’s going to be kept confidential,” Zeckhauser has said.

By the beginning of October, after more than 200 interviews, 1,000 letters, and untold hours of research and reading, the committee had assembled a list of over 400 names. In the first cut, only four were removed from consideration: two because they were over age 90, and another two because committee members discovered the suggested candidates had died.