Several sources pointed to Robert D. Reischauer ’63—one of seven members of the Harvard Corporation, the University’s highest governing body—as a contender. Reischauer, who was the director of the Congressional Budget Office from 1989 to 1995, would bring valuable management experience to a school recently plagued by fiscal woes, according to one tenured KSG professor.

But that same source noted that Reischauer’s close ties to University leadership might hurt his chances. “It would look like an inside job,” the professor said.

And a source close to Reischauer said he was unlikely to cede his place on the Corporation or his position as president of the Urban Institute.

Reischauer, speaking from his Washington, D.C. office, said he has not discussed a potential candidacy for the deanship.

“This is the first discussion I have had about the dean search outside my responsibilities as a Corporation member,” he said in an interview.

One senior KSG professor said that a former CEA chair R. Glenn Hubbard is also being considered as an external candidate.

But a former KSG administrator said that Hubbard’s conservative political views could undermine his candidacy.

Hubbard—currently a tenured professor at Columbia University—was a principal architect of Bush’s tax cuts. Hubbard worked under President Bush from 2001 to 2003.

Several KSG sources said that Ford Foundation Professor of Science and International Affairs Ashton B. Carter is also among the top internal candidates.

Both Carter and Nye were top Pentagon officials in the Clinton administration.

And KSG faculty members said that Carter’s experience in foreign affairs could boost his candidacy at a school where nearly half the student population is international.

But the former KSG administrator said that Carter might prefer to focus on his high-profile research investigating the safety of global nuclear stockpiles.

Carter was traveling and could not be reached for comment.

While one senior KSG professor mentioned Princeton economist Alan B. Krueger as a candidate, others said that Krueger’s inexperience as an academic administrator made him an unlikely choice.

Another KSG professor said that Krueger’s boss at Princeton, Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs Dean Anne-Marie Slaughter, would be a strong candidate for Nye’s post.