Despite media reports that he is being considered as a potential candidate for Harvard’s presidency, Provost John Etchemendy vigorously denied having any interest in the Cambridge post.

“My feelings haven’t changed,” Etchemendy told The Daily in an email Saturday. “All I will add is that I’m sure there are equally qualified and much more appropriate candidates for the position.”

The University’s chief academic and budgetary official told The Daily on Sept. 27 that he would not take Harvard’s top job.

“It is flattering that my name is mentioned in connection with the Harvard presidency, but I have no intention or desire to leave my current position, which I believe is the best position in higher education,” he said at the time.

The latest round of speculation was fueled by a Dec. 5 Harvard Crimson report which identified Etchemendy and 10 others as under consideration by the presidential search committee.

A secret list of 30 names was presented to the University’s Board of Overseers at the beginning of September as potential candidates, according to the Boston Globe in a Dec. 6 report confirming that Etchemendy was on the list.

Eight of the 11 were outsiders, termed “top-tier academic officials in the United States and Britain” by the Boston Globe. Three were senior Harvard officials.

“You should not give too much credence to lists of this sort,” Etchemendy said Saturday.

The Harvard job was vacated by Larry Summers, a former Clinton Treasury secretary who clashed with faculty and was criticized for remarks about the dearth of women in the sciences.

A Costa Rican gambling house placed the odds of Etchemendy being named as president at 4 to 1 in August, the third-most-likely to gain the post at the time.

Etchemendy is only the twelfth provost in Stanford’s history. Before becoming president, John Hennessy served as provost from 1999 to 2000. Hennessy’s predecessor was Condoleezza Rice, now the Secretary of State.