What It Does

To most undergraduates the Corporation is as remote a concern as the Medical School power plant. Students are affected daily by its decisions, yet few could say who the Corporation is or what it does. Those students who are aware of it have a sense that the Corporation is a powerful group, wielding ultimate authority in a far-flung and decentralized bureaucracy in which no one claims to hold power. Yet Corporation members themselves insist they are just another rung in the bureaucratic ladder and that their business is by-and-large routine and trivial.

The Corporation consists of the president, the treasurer and the five Fellows of Harvard College. In theory, the Corporation owns the University; the Charter of 1650 and subsequent legislation give the Corporation power to dispose of the property of the College as well as to act as principal decision-maker in the governance of the University. The Corporation could conceivably decide at its meeting today to turn the Yard into a parking lot, as Cambridge Councilor Alfred E. Vellucci has often suggested. Fortunately, the Board of Overseers could be counted on to reverse the decision at its next meeting.

A common misconception that the Corporation is actually much larger may be due partly to a confusion of it with the Overseers, a group of 30 men and women elected for six-year terms by all degree-holders of the University. On paper, the Overseers are the most important governing body of Harvard, invested with the power to review all aspects of the University and charged with the ultimate responsibility of assuring its continued existence as an institution of learning.

However, it is the Corporation that possesses executive authority. It has charge over all University property and authority over all faculties. All appropriations, appointments, degree nominations and statute changes must be approved by it.

Corporation members insist that this authority does not constitute power, that they are not making policy.

"I don't think of it as having power," Albert L. Nickerson '33, one of the Fellows, says of the Corporation. "We work very hard, but 'power' isn't even really in our vocabulary."

However, in an institution in which policy is seldom made in the guise of policy--only twice in recent history has the Corporation explicitly issued policy statements--it is the sum of a series of dollars-and-cents decisions that determine the direction of the University.

Corporation members say that the Board of Overseers has the real authority, since all Corporation decisions must receive Overseer consent. But the unwieldy size of that board and the infrequency of its meetings--generally only seven times a year compared to the twice-monthly Corporation meetings--make it more of an alumni check on the system and a vehicle for communicating their sentiments than a real determinant of University policy.

The members of the Corporation concede that their small size and long tenure--members can serve from the time of their appointment to age 70--contribute to making the group an effectual one if not a powerful one.

Appointments to the Corporation are the product of a self-perpetuating mechanism in which the current members fill the vacancies in their own ranks. The most recent appointments were in 1970 when two professors, John Morton Blum '43 of Yale, and Charles P. Slichter '45 of the University of Illinois at Urbana, replaced two lawyers.

Currently the Corporation is conposed of Francis H. Burr '35, a partner in the prestigious Boston law firm of Ropes and Gray, who has served since 1954; Nickerson, director and former chairman of the board of the Mobil Oil Corp., who has been a member since 1965; Hugh Calkins '45, a prominent Cleveland lawyer, appointed in 1968; Blum, a History professor, and Slichter, a Physics professor; in addition to President Bok and Treasurer George Putnam '49.

Every other Monday, the president, treasurer and Fellows of Harvard College assemble in what used to be the master bedroom of the President's House at 17 Quincy St. Theoretically, the group meets for six hours, although Burr remembers one meeting which lasted from 9:30 a.m. to 2:30 the following morning.

The agenda is prepared by Bok and Burr together and usually consists of the reports of several deans and vice presidents, routine "stamping" of various appointments and budget changes, subcommittee reports, and discussion of "informal" issues--that is, issues not linked to a budgetary or other specific request. At present, the issues that are under the greatest scrutiny are the Medical School power plant and the athletic fund drive.

The members bring a range of political opinion to their meetings, ranging from Nickerson, who is a liberal Republican, to Calkins and Blum, who are active Democrats. Burr and Slichter are independents, while Bok and Putnam lean to the Democrats' side. Collectively, the Corporation is the most liberal it has ever been, a far cry from the days when Republican registration was an unstated requirement.

The differences among the Corporation members are less pronounced than the similarities, which is not too surprising considering that the members choose each other. All of the members attended prep school. All of them have the kinds of flexible and well-paying jobs which allow them to schedule the lengthy meetings for which they receive no payment, other than expenses. And all of them are leaders, active in business, community and educational affairs.

Yet this is a group which does not "believe" in leadership. It does not see itself as an initiator of action--which it is not. It sees itself instead as another checks in the Harvard system of checks and balances. It sees itself as embodying no special interests, its members representing no constituencies. It sees itself as a moderating force. But it underrates the importance of its ability to regulate the speed with which many little decisions are implemented.

The group reaches all its decisions by consensus. The smallness of the group permits "marginal differences of opinion to remain marginal," according to Blum.

And the Corporation maintains its consensus. According to Burr, "If you [the president] don't like the way a guy is doing things, you ask him to quit and he quits--or else he is powerless." Disagreement is tantamount to resignation, although "most of the issues lend themselves to some sort of middle level of decision," Calkins says.

The Corporation members seem to think of themselves largely as a privy council to the president. An important function of the Corporation, according to Calkins, is to give the president the opportunity to talk out a problem with discrete people who are not around the University all the time, as well as to provide other insights and judgments. The principal function of the Corporation, he says, is to "react in a generally sensible way."

Says Nickerson: "It is important for the Corporation not to meddle, not to mess around with things like administrative policy and curriculum. What it amounts to is being useful without being known."