Charles Odegaard, 55, Washington; One of the fastest climbers among the newer presidents, he is so active that his regents a few years ago ordered him to take a vacation. Recently, the Carnegie Corporation of New York gave him a three-month travel grant just to refresh himself--this week he is on the Mediterranean. Once a history professor, he moved to the Seattle post in 1958 from the deanship of Michigan's College of Literature, Science and the Arts.

O. Meredith Wilson, 56, Minnesota. A warm man with a dry humor and an analytic mind, he is an ideal moderator who manages to shape meetings toward his own preconceived intent, yet with a democratic touch. He is chairman of the Institute of International Education and National Advisory Council on Education of Disadvantaged Children. He is a former history professor who was a Ford Foundation official and president of the University of Oregon before going to Minnesota in 1960.

Theodore Hesburgh, 48, Notre Dame. Freewheeling and decisive, he roams from Taiwan paddy fields to ice floes in Antarctica, retains an amazing grasp of detail of all he sees and hears, and considers his latest project, organizing an ecumenical study institute in Jerusalem, "a very big thing--but something you do before breakfast." He is a member of the National Science Board, U.S. Commission on Civil Rights, consultant to the State Department. He spends 120 to 150 days a year off campus.

Katharine McBride, 61, Bryn Mawr. She probably belongs to more key groups than any single male president--ranging from the National Institutes of Health to the National Science Foundation. She has served as president of the American Council on Education and the College Entrance Examination Board. A psychologist, she has led Bryn Mawr for 23 years. "This college is interested in progress for U.S. education and in working for it," she says. "Not just progress, but fast progress."

David Henry, 60, Illinois. A stiff individualist (he insists on spelling words his way, such as enrolment with one 1), Henry has a cold, efficient manner that can jar a meeting into action. He is executive committee chairman of the National Association of State Universities and Land Grant Colleges, vice president of the Association of American Universities. A former English professor, he headed Wayne University, served at N.Y.U. before going to Illinois in 1955. He goes to meetings by train, and "a flow of memos goes off in every direction when I get home."

Lee DuBridge, 60, Caltech. Mild-mannered, soft-spoken and enormously proud of his school, Physicist DuBridge is constantly on the phone as a skilled broker between Caltech's scientific resources and the nation's ever-expanding demands for scientific knowledge. He is an adviser to NASA on manned space flight, a director of National Educational Television and the National Merit Scholarship Corporation.

William Friday, 45, North Carolina. An efficient organizer, he has been president of the South's best university for ten years, has pipelines to resources of all of the region's leading schools. He heads an advisory committee on relations between AID and universities, and chairs the President's commission on White House Fellows. A lawyer, he has spent most of his career at Chapel Hill.

Franklin Murphy, 50, U.C.L.A. Perhaps the most articulate of all, he turns down at least five outside jobs for each one he takes on, but enjoys "camaraderie with my colleagues" and is convinced that outside involvement continually refreshes his attitude toward his own campus. A former medical school dean and chancellor at the University of Kansas, he is in his sixth year as chancellor at U.C.L.A.

Julius Stratton, 64, M.l.T. A scholar as well as keen administrator, he spends at least a day each week on national committees: "People have asked me how you get on these boards, but the difficulty is staying off." A physicist, he has spent more than 40 years at M.I.T., says that "those of us who are centered on science have a national obligation to respond."

Robert Goheen, 46, Princeton. A scholarly humanist who stakes out his positions carefully, he is a close friend of Secretary of State Dean Rusk, argues that "a university president is not a political eunuch." A past chairman of the American Council on Education, he is a trustee of the Rockefeller Foundation, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation and Princeton's influential Educational Testing Service. He jumped spectacularly from professor to the presidency in 1957.

Fred Harrinqton, 53, Wisconsin. He spends half his time away from Madison on projects in which his IBM memory, crisp voice and instant answers keep countless meetings moving toward decisive conclusions. He is an adviser to HEW Secretary John Gardner and the Peace Corps, chairs the Universities Research Association, Inc. (Argonne National Labs), which is building an atomic accelerator. He taught history at Wisconsin, rose from department chairman to president in ten years, has held the job three years.

James Perkins, 54, Cornell. A former Carnegie Corporation executive and wartime Office of Price Administration official who has maintained extensive ties with both education and government, Perkins now heads a presidential committee re-evaluating foreign aid. A firm believer in cooperation among universities, he urged private colleges and universities last week to set up regional networks for mutual planning. He has led Cornell only 21 years, once served as a vice president at Swarthmore.

Rufus Clement, 65, Atlanta University. A Negro historian with a Ph.D. from Northwestern who has headed his school for 29 years, Clement takes pride in his skill in "race and human relations, first, and foreign relations, particularly African, second." He is an adviser to the State Department on African affairs, a member of the National Commission on Accrediting, board member of the American Association for the United Nations. He flies so much that he has Pan Am's schedules almost memorized.

John Hannah, 63, Michigan State. An outgoing activist and a former Assistant Secretary of Defense, he claims that he can tap his campus specialists, get an answer to most any question for Government or research groups "within 30 minutes." He serves on the President's Committee on Equal Opportunity and seven other policymaking committees. He holds neither a master's nor a doctor's degree, yet has headed Michigan State for 24 years.

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