Hobart's Brown Denies Presidential Possibility

Alan W. Brown '30, president of Hobart College, last night denied reports that he is under consideration for the presidency of Harvard.

"I have not been contacted by any member of the Harvard Corporation and have received no communications whatsoever from them," he said. "And I haven't been in Cambridge since late November, when I came down for the Harvard-Yale game," he added.

Despite Brown's denial, rumors persist that he is very much in consideration for the job.

Printed Rumors

Earlier in the week a Boston newspaper had printed a story which asserted that Brown was not only very much in consideration but hinted that he had already been offered and had accepted the position.

Replying to rumors that he had recently made a surprise visit to Cambridge, Brown said: "If I did it was in my sleep--I was in Hartford for the Trinity president's inauguration earlier this spring, and saw a few old Harvard friends, but we talked only briefly, barely greeting each other.

"I don't know where this rumor started, and it's getting to be embarrassing," he added last night.

Brown, whose daughter, Janet L., is a freshman at Radcliffe, graduated from the College cum laude in 1930 and taught at the Millbrook School, afterwards becoming a professor in English and the humanities at Columbia.

He became an assistant dean at Columbia and received his Ph.D. there is 1945. In 1948, he became president of Hobart, which, with William Smith College, is known as The Colleges of the Seneca.

"Who's Who" lists him as a Democrat--he was once elected as a village trustee on the Democratic ticket--and a Presbyternian.