Richard A. Smith has agreed to continue his service as a Fellow of Harvard College for at least two years, President Neil L. Rudenstine has announced.

Smith, chairman of the board of Harcourt General Inc. and a 1946 graduate of Harvard College, became a member of the Harvard Corporation in 1992, following three and one-half years as a member of the Board of Overseers.

"I am delighted that Dick Smith's circumstances will now permit him to continue his extraordinarily helpful service to Harvard for the next few years," Rudenstine said. "He has been an invaluable contributor to the Corporation for the last five years, and we look forward to having the continuing benefit of his perspective, experience, and counsel."

Smith was originally expected to conclude his service on the Corporation as of the end of the current academic year. Rudenstine said that an advisory committee, consisting of members of both the Corporation and the Board of Overseers, has made excellent progress in identifying a number of promising candidates.

"Given a variety of circumstances, including Dick's involvement in a number of important ongoing matters, the members of the Corporation, consulting with the special advisory committee, have agreed that it would strongly benefit the University to have him remain as a Fellow for the next couple of years," Rudenstine said. "Meanwhile, the advisory committee has identified excellent possible successors, several of whom would find it difficult at this moment to make the intensive time commitment that the Corporation requires. We should be in a very good position to move forward when we next have a vacancy."

In addition to serving as chairman and chief executive officer of Harcourt General Inc., the Neiman Marcus Group, and GC Companies, Smith is vice chairman of the board of the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute and chairman of the board of Facing History and Ourselves. He is a former director of BankBoston and of Liberty Mutual Insurance Co. As a Fellow of Harvard College, he has been a director of the Harvard Management Company and of its affiliate, the Aeneas Group, and he has served for eight years, as both an Overseer and a Fellow, on the University's Joint Committee on Appointments.

Henry Rosovsky, who assumed emeritus status as the Geyser University Professor at the end of 1996, will step down from his Corporation post this June. As previously announced, he will be succeeded as Fellow by Hanna Gray, the University of Chicago's President Emerita and Harry Pratt Judson Distinguished Service Professor of History.

The Corporation is one of Harvard's two governing boards (the other being the Board of Overseers), and is comprised of five Fellows together with the President and the Treasurer. It meets frequently to address a broad range of management issues and policy matters. The Corporation is the final executive authority within the University; less formally, it advises the President on a wide variety of issues arising from and affecting every part of the University. New Fellows are elected by the Corporation with consent given by the Board of Overseers.