Renowned prospect won't join Harvard

To some professors on campus and Harvard-watchers across the country, Nannerl O. Keohane would be the perfect president for Harvard University.

As a former president at both Duke University and Wellesley College, she is one of the most highly regarded leaders in American higher education. As a member of Harvard's governing board, she knows as well as anyone the unique and momentous task of repairing the university after the troubling fall of Lawrence H. Summers.

But tear up those candidate lists, and hold back the nomination letters.

In a telephone interview yesterday, Keohane said she does not want the job. Her effort to end the speculation over a candidacy is a sign that politicking and posturing over the most exalted position in academia have begun, even though the search has not.

''I'm not available," she said. ''I want to tell people to please stop putting me on the lists of potential candidates."

Keohane, who is 65, first led Wellesley College for 12 years and then Duke University for 11.

She stepped down from Duke in 2004, and has returned to teaching and research as a professor at Princeton University this school year.

''I've been looking forward to this for many years," Keohane said. ''I'm not getting any younger, and this job needs someone with stamina and energy. It's not a good time in my life to do it."

Keohane invoked the famous words of Civil War General William Tecumseh Sherman, who refused to run for president, saying, ''I will not accept if nominated and will not serve if elected."

As one of seven members of Harvard's Corporation, Keohane will be involved in choosing Summers's successor.

If she did want the job, she said, she would confront a possible conflict of interest. ''I don't want people to worry about what it would mean for me to be on the search committee and to be on somebody's list," Keohane said.

Harvard has yet to formally begin the search, but Keohane said the process would begin soon.

''We are aware that people are interested, and it's an important search," Keohane said.

Asked if her comment about her age meant she thought the new president should be younger, Keohane said she wasn't ruling anything out. Harvard has traditionally sought presidents who could serve for 10 or 20 years, and Summers was only 46 when he was chosen.

Keohane's comments, while reasonable for someone with more than two decades of experience as a college president, illustrate the delicate position for others mentioned as possible candidates. Should they deny interest or not?

On the one hand, to be considered a contender for the Harvard presidency can only be a compliment. On the other, presidents and administrators at other universities risk alienating students, faculty, and donors if they seem to be entertaining the idea of an early exit, specialists in higher education say. Big donations often take years of wooing, and any sign that the chief executive won't be around to use the money in agreed-upon fashion can unnerve a potential donor.

Amy Gutmann, who was a candidate for the Harvard presidency last time around and has been leading the University of Pennsylvania for less than two years, told the student newspaper, the Daily Pennsylvanian, ''I love what I'm doing at Penn, and I plan to be here for the foreseeable future."

Gutmann was in Asia and could not be reached, an aide said.

Several other people mentioned as candidates were also quiet yesterday. A spokesman for the Harvard Law School dean, Elena Kagan, said that she was unavailable, but that she is focused on her work. An aide to Drew Gilpin Faust, dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, said Faust could not be reached.

President Lawrence S. Bacow of Tufts University could not be reached. A spokesman for Brown University president Ruth J. Simmons, the first African-American to head an Ivy League university, released a statement saying, ''The president's office declines to comment on any speculation about leadership issues that are taking place at Harvard."

Bombardieri can be reached at bombardieri@globe.com.