By E. Graydon Carter

In her back-to-campus blue blazer with white piping, Ellen Putter could pass for a senior psych major at most Ivy League schools. But professors at New York City's Barnard College better not treat her like one. Last week Putter, 31, a graduate of the women's college and Columbia Law School, was named president of Barnard, Columbia's sister school. She thus becomes the youngest woman head of a major U.S. college. Actually, she has been acting president while on leave from a New York City law firm. Putter's no-nonsense managerial style and success in raising money won high marks from Barnard's 2,500 students and board of trustees, but at her own request, the committee searching for a permanent president did not consider her until it had reviewed 159 other candidates.

Mon Dieu, the news was enough to send any self-respecting member of Parisian cafe society lunging for the bicarbonate of soda. Maxim's, the world-renowned, gastronomic masterpiece on the city's tony Rue Royale, was sold last week. The new proprietor: Fashion Designer Pierre Cardin. The $20 million tab was steep even for Cardin, 58, who lately seems more interested in haute finance than haute couture. He has had designs on the art nouveau establishment since 1978, when Maxim's present owners, Louis and Maggie Vaudable, agreed to lend the eatery's venerable name to a Cardin-owned line of boutiques and consumer products. The French designer now hopes to squeeze even more profits out of the name by launching a chain of mini-Maxim's boutiques in the U.S. and Japan.

Visiting a Midwestern hog farm last week on a three-week U.S. tour, the Archbishop of Canterbury, Robert Runcie, groaned with gratitude. "I have received so many gifts," said he, "I may have to open an Iowa room when I get back to Lambeth Palace in London." Runcie, 59, certainly had his hands full with the 40-lb. Berkshire maiden who seemed intent on hogging the spotlight. The gift was nothing to snoot at -- as a gentleman farmer back home, Runcie oversees 60 prize Berkshires of his own. The latest addition to the Archbishop's porcine parish listened beatifically as Runcie gushed, "I love my pigs." She perked a wary swine's ear, however, when the Archbishop added, "but I don't mind eating them."

"I feel blessed," grins Elsie Berger, 72, at being named the first Horsewoman of the Year by Horseman and Fair World magazine. She was certainly a long shot, for men had won the honor the previous 24 years. Starting with little more than a dream--a mare named Niagara Dream, to be exact--Berger turned a mom-and-pop stable into a racing powerhouse. Her ticket to the winner's circle was Niatross, a strapping bay regarded as the swiftest standard-bred in the history of the sport. In two years, he took top laurels on 37 of 39 trips to the post, earned $2 million and became the sixth horse to win pacing's Triple Crown. Now that Niatross has hung up his harness for a life on the stud circuit, his sisters, Ellatross and Rosarium, have moved into the fast lane. Berger, who occasionally brandishes a stogie at the race track for Runyonesque effect, turns matronly when talking about the two: she calls them her "girls."

For Father Guido Sarducci, the fictional rock critic and gossip columnist for the Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, the trip to Rome should have been something of a pilgrimage. But for Actor Don Novello, 38, who created Sarducci and often played him on TV's Saturday Night Live, the visit was less than heavenly. Decked out in priestly threads for a photo story for Attenzione, a magazine for Italian Americans published in New York City, Novello ventured past the Vatican walls for a shot outside L 'Osservatore 's offices. Swiss Guards soon collared the comic cleric and charged him with impersonating a padre. Not until nightfall did police finally absolve Novello and two Attenzione freelancers of their sin and turn them loose. Shrugs Novello: "I hope they have a better sense of humor in Saudi Arabia, where I plan to pose in the Great Mosque at Mecca."

-- By E. Graydon Carter

On the Record

Alan Cartnal, author and former newspaperman, discussing California Crazy, his book about life in Los Angeles: "Of course I'm a trashy writer. But consider the territory."

Jody Powell, 37, former White House press secretary, on why fired HEW Secretary Joseph Califano blasts ex-President Jimmy Carter in his upcoming political memoirs: "Hell hath no fury like a fat cat Washington lawyer scorned."

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