SPECULATION ZEROES IN ON NEIL RUDENSTINE

Former Princeton Provost Neil Leon Rudenstine will likely be presented by the presidential search committee as its final nominee at a hastily-scheduled Board of Overseers meeting in New York on Sunday, The Crimson learned yesterday.

The committee has apparently eliminated the other three remaining candidates to succeed Harvard President Derek C. Bok, who announced last year that he planned to retire this June.

Sources indicated yesterday that University of Chicago Provost Gerhard Casper is no longer under consideration for the post, and one source said that Rudenstine is the only remaining candidate.

One highly-placed official said Andrus Professor of Genetics Philip Leder '56, once rumored to be the leading contender in this race, has been out of the running for at least two weeks.

Baker Professor of Economics Martin S. Feldstein '61 is also no longer a candidate, one source reported.

Feldstein is scheduled to leave for a week-long family vacation in the U.S. Virgin Islands this morning. He was in Washington D.C. last night and could not be reached for comment.

Search committee chair Charles P. Slichter Jr. '45, reached at a hotel in Cincinnati, Ohio last night, would neither confirm nor deny that Rudenstine is the final candidate.

"When we have a nominee to present to the overseers, we'll present it to them," said Slichter.

Other members of the search committee contacted yesterday declined to comment.

The committee's choice must be confirmed by the alumni-elected Board of Overseers before a new president may be appointed. At Sunday's meeting, called earlier this week, the overseers are scheduled to meet the candidate selected by the committee. It is expected that the Board will hold an official vote at their regular meeting on April 7.

The Harvard Corporation, which may have discussed the search at its meeting earlier this week, must also technically approve the nomination, although five of its six members are on the search committee itself. Bok, the sixth member, has not been officially involved in the search.

University officials contacted yesterday refused comment on the reports.

Rudenstine, who was provost of Princeton for 10 years, is presently executive vice president of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The 56-year-old administrator left his university post in 1987 when Princeton President William G. Bowen stepped down to direct the Mellon Foundation.

Rudenstine earned his doctorate in Renaissance literature at Harvard and taught here for four years before returning to Princeton.

Angelica Z. Rudenstine, Neil Rudenstine's wife, yesterday declined to comment on her husband's candidacy.

Over the past several weeks, the eight-member search committee has held clandestine meetings with candidates in Boston, New York and Chicago.

The search committee includes three members of the Board of Over-seers: Washington lawyer Wesley S. Williams Jr. '62, University of Chicago President Hanna H. Gray and investment manager John C. Whitechead. Five members of the Corporation also sit on the committee: Slichter, acting Dean of the Faculty Henry Rosovsky, Washington attorney Judith R. Hope, corporate executive Robert G. Stone Jr. '45 and Harvard Treasurer D. Ronald Daniel.

Joshua A. Gerstein, Tara A. Nayak, Philip P. Pan and Maggie S. Tucker reported this article.