Soon-to-be-confirmed Dean of Harvard College Benedict H. Gross ’71 may have stumbled into a bigger job than he wants.

This fall, Gross took on the title of Dean of Undergraduate Education and its mandate to oversee the upcoming curricular review. A week ago, however, he accepted an offer from Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby to add running the College to his list of responsibilities. How he will balance these two domains remains a mystery to the dean—one he likely pondered over the at least two weeks he took to consider Kirby’s offer.

Presently, Kirby has appointed a committee, headed by Executive Dean of the Faculty Nancy L. Maull, to investigate how to best divide these responsibilities.

While awaiting the committee’s recommendations, Gross said that he is pushing for a structure will allow him to focus on his main interest—the curricular review.

“The point of reorganization is to have enough qualified people in place so I can keep [curricular review] a priority,” he said.

And colleagues confirm that Gross’ loyalty lies with the curricular review.

“It is quite clear that Dick Gross is quite committed to performing the idea of solid curricular review,” said Assistant Professor of Computer Science Michael D. Mitzenmacher. “Clearly his focus will be on the curricular.”

But as things stand now, Gross has taken on a lengthy list of non-academic responsibilities currently overseen by Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68.

These include chairing the Administrative Board, House masters meetings, the Committees on House and College Life and 26 other Faculty committees overseeing advising, fellowships, dramatics, public service, athletics and information technology.

According to a University official, details of the integration of the two offices have been considered haphazardly.

“Because it happened more suddenly than it needed to, the plans for reorganization and a successor were not well developed,” the official said.

Gross himself said he did not foresee this restructuring last semester when he began organizing the committees that will oversee the curricular review.

But while Gross and other administrators were surprised by this appointment, Kirby said in an interview Friday that he had been considering Gross’ qualifications for an expanded deanship since the summer.

“Every dean, in assuming office, has looked to see how the structure might be changed. It was on my mind as I was searching for a dean for undergraduate education,” he said.

Kirby’s plans for restructuring—while unknown to Gross—were not new. A proposed model of consolidating these roles was presented in a report co-authored by Lewis in 1994.