This year, Hyman has sat on roughly half of the University’s ad hoc committees reviewing candidates for tenure, with Bok serving on the other half. Hyman had a slightly lighter load under Summers.

The two have also divided their work on search committees exploring possible candidates for positions to be filled by the next president.

Hyman is assisting with the searches for a new dean of Harvard Medical School (HMS) and University Librarian, while Bok has been involved with searches for new deans of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences and the Graduate School of Design.

The two administrators even share the same chief of staff.

"We work very closely together," Bok said last week. "Some things he may be better at, sometimes I have more time than he or vice versa, and so we just work it out that way."

"I think that always works better than trying to define some very clear boxes. The world is too messy to be divided up that way," Bok added.

"I think that the division of responsibilities is working just fine," Hyman says of the relationship.

Hyman has also taken over the lion’s share of the president’s alumni development and fundraising duties—a potential boon to his prospects as a candidate.

"Derek has made it clear that he’s not going to do a lot of travel, a lot of fundraising," says Deputy Provost for Administration Eric Buehrens ’75. "But maintaining contact with the university’s major philanthropic supporters and potential supporters is not something we can put on ice for a year, so some of that has fallen to Steve."

Hyman estimates that during the tenure of Lawrence H. Summers, he spent ten percent of his time fundraising. He has done twice as much this year.

"Is he doing exactly what a president used to do," Buehrens says, "or is he keeping lines of communication open? Who knows?"

These added duties have given Hyman more face time with major donors, who often serve as unofficial, but influential, consultants to the search committee. Bradley says that Hyman’s increased presence with alumni might be a valuable advantage in the search.

"I’ve seen him speak in public," Bradley says, "and he’s good at it, and the alumni seem to like him."

A GRIM PRECEDENT

But experts say the very nature of the provostship can undermine presidential ambitions.

"What works against [a provost] in part is that the office involves dealing with autonomous deans, and standing between the deans and the president, and that’s very tricky," says Keller, the Harvard historian.