Businessperson Scott A. Abell ’72 will oversee the fundraising efforts of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) beginning in May, officials announced last week.

In his new job as Associate Vice President and Dean for Development of FAS, Abell said he hopes to raise money to support the initiatives of Dean of the Faculty William C. Kirby and University President Lawrence H. Summers in areas such as the sciences, financial aid and “service to society.”

“We need to identify the cost of and find the resources for the funding of that which the faculties, the dean and the president deem to be absolutely necessary for man to move forward,” Abell said. “We have a unique opportunity in Cambridge to build a center of learning beyond anything seen on the planet since perhaps ancient Greece, and it would be centered right here. To do that on the magnitude that is possible will require a lot of new and different ways of thinking about how to fund universities.”

Vice President for Alumni Affairs and Development Donella M. Rapier, with whom Abell will be working closely in his new role, said he would oversee about 90 employees in the FAS development office.

Rapier also praised Abell’s experience. Abell founded a financial services holding company and served as the president of the Harvard Alumni Association from 2000 to 2001. He was one of eight alums on the ballot to become a University overseer this year before withdrawing from the race to take the development job.

“He comes to us both with that experience of being on the volunteer side and also having built and run several successful businesses,” Rapier said. “He brings a kind of breadth of experience that’s unique to the role.”

Abell said he looked forward to getting support from many donors in footing the bill for the biggest plans on the horizons of FAS and the University.

“We need to reach out to foundations, to individuals, to corporations, to families that are beginning to seriously look at their social impact on the world and to the large sums of money being set aside by the post-World War II generation, that they feel they can once again make an enormous difference,” he said. “The biggest challenges I think will be in the form of clarifying these large-scale initiatives so that they can readily be seen in consumable-size or bite-size pieces that individuals can readily identify with and become part of.”

Abell said he had already talked with Kirby and Summers, and that he anticipated working with both of them after taking on his new position.

“The vision for this will come from the deans and the president will pull that all together,” he said. “As this gels, by necessity I would think all of us involved in this effort would have to stay pretty close.”

In addition to fund-raising for FAS, Abell will take part in the University’s upcoming capital campaign.

“That will certainly be something he’s involved in heavily,” Rapier said.

Planners hope the campaign, which is expected to begin later this year, will surpass the amount raised by the University’s previous capital campaign over a projected seven to 10-year span. That campaign raised $2.6 billion between 1992 and 1999.

Abell said he was unsure if he would stay in his new job for the full length of the campaign.

“My hope would be to help structure the organization, quickly identify and mentor a series of people all capable of taking my place, and move out of their way when the time is right,” he said. “This will be a multi-year task, but perhaps not a long-term one with me having the identified title.”

Beth B. Raffeld, the most recent person to hold the title of FAS dean for development, left Harvard in January just over a year after her appointment in October 2002.

“She just decided that it just wasn’t quite the right fit for her,” Rapier said of Raffeld.

“I think she had some other priorities to get on with,” Abell said.

Raffeld could not be reached for comment last night.

There was no FAS Dean for Development between 1998 and Raffeld’s 2002 arrival.

In the months since Raffeld’s departure, Rapier said that she and a number of other administrators had taken a relatively short time to sift through a small group of potential hires in order to select Abell.

But Abell did not immediately jump to leave what he called a “completely enjoyable retirement.”

“He turned us down twice,” Rapier said. “All of the senior administrators who met him just thought he was fantastic, and it was a matter of convincing him to come do this.”

Abell, who will move to Massachusetts from his current residence in Ohio, is the father of Kelly S. Abell ’02 and Scott P. Abell ’07.

—Staff writer Simon W. Vozick-Levinson can be reached at vozick@fas.harvard.edu.