Harvard search is questioned

Harvard graduate student leaders yesterday demanded a seat on the search committee that will help select the university's next president.

In an open letter to the Harvard community, student leaders of Harvard's 11 graduate and professional schools urged the university's governing board ''not to neglect the voices of graduate and professional students."

''Finding someone qualified and well suited to be the next president of Harvard is not a task that should be relegated to a select group of insiders," said the letter from the Harvard Graduate Council, an umbrella group of graduate student governments.

Last week Harvard's governing board broke with tradition and promised to create faculty and student advisory groups to help find a successor to President Lawrence H. Summers, whose resignation takes effect June 30.

But the search committee is still an exclusive group: Of the nine members, six are from the Corporation, Harvard's governing board, and three are members of the university's auxiliary board, the board of overseers. The Corporation selects the president in consultation with the overseers.

The Harvard Graduate Council, which represents 13,000 students, said the university should follow the example of Stanford and other schools that have included students in their presidential searches. Northeastern University has named a student to its presidential search committee.

A Harvard spokesman did not respond to requests for comment yesterday.

John Kalis, Harvard Graduate Council president, said students would drive home concerns that Harvard needs more teaching positions for graduate students and additional interdisciplinary programs.

The search for Summers's replacement is expected to take nine months to a year. Summers announced his resignation in February, a week before he was to face a second no-confidence vote from the Faculty of Arts and Sciences.