Prospective candidates to become the next president of Harvard University may be hurt — along with their home institutions — by the publication of the names of 16 of them on the university’s list of potential nominees yesterday in the student-run Harvard Crimson newspaper.

They include the president of Columbia University, Lee Bollinger; the president of Amherst College, Anthony Marx; the dean of Harvard Law School, Elena Kagan, and Harvard University provost Steven Hyman.

Also on the list, which the Crimson received anonymously, are: Radcliffe Institute Dean Drew Gilpin Faust; University of Pennsylvania President Amy Gutmann; Institute of Medicine President Harvey Fineberg; Tufts University President Lawrence Bacow; Stanford University Provost John Etchemendy; University of Cambridge Vice Chancellor Alison Richard; Princeton University President Shirley Tilghman; Howard Hughes Institute of Medicine President Thomas Cech; University of Michigan President Mary Sue Coleman; University of California President Robert Dynes; Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute President Shirley Ann Jackson; Cornell University Provost Carolyn Martin; Carnegie Endowment for International Peace President Jessica Tuchman Matthews, and Washington University in St. Louis Chancellor Mark Wrighton.

The Crimson reported it confirmed 11 of the names with sources close to the Corporation.

The names were given to Harvard’s Board of Overseers, the second-most powerful group on campus, at a meeting on Sunday in Cambridge, Mass., according to the Crimson. A committee of six members of the school’s ruling corporation and three overseers has been searching for candidates to replace a former U.S. Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, since March.

“It is going to make the process so much more difficult for Harvard,” the vice president of the Center for Effective Leadership at the American Council on Education in Washington and a specialist in collegiate presidential selection, Claire Van Ummersen, 70, said. “It is very embarrassing. I think a lot of them will decide to simply not accept the nomination and withdraw at this point.”

The people on the list, particularly sitting college presidents, will now have a trust problem on their home campuses, Ms. Van Ummersen said. Many or all of those named will be forced to put out public statements saying they weren’t actively seeking the Harvard job, held by interim President Derek Bok since July, when Mr. Summers resigned the post after five years.

“I know most of these people wouldn’t want their name public unless it were being announced they had been selected,” University of Colorado Professor Gabriel Kaplan wrote in an e- mail.

However, because it is early in the process, the candidates mentioned have room to evade the question of whether they are looking to leave their schools, Mr. Kaplan, who studies how universities govern themselves said.

“Everyone on that list has plausible deniability that they are not interested in the job, that they are flattered to be considered, but that they are not actively seeking the job,” Mr. Kaplan said.

Amherst College spokesman Paul Statt said president Anthony Marx wouldn’t comment on the issue.

“Amherst College is flattered the Harvard search committee is taking notice of the important work that Tony Marx and his colleagues has been doing at Amherst,” Mr. Statt said.

The Harvard Corp. was criticized for keeping the process in which Mr. Summers was hired in 2001 too closed. Since March, corporation members have met with students and professors to gain campus contributions on whom the next president should be.

Ms. Van Ummersen said those on the list may now have trouble raising money if they are in the middle of fund-raising campaigns, such as Mr. Bollinger of Columbia University and Ms. Simmons of Brown University, both of whom are on the leaked list.

“The president plays a very large role, especially with donors,” Ms. Van Ummersen said. “Someone once said to me that people give to people. Donors will have some pause and think if now is the right time to make a gift.”