Massachusetts Hall's Men in Gray

In April 1978, during the height of student protest over the University's South African investment policy--on a day when hundreds of students marched through the Yard and milled about Massachusetts and University Halls--Derek C. Bok, Harvard's phlegmatic president, told reporters, "It's just another day in the life of a University president."

Bok--along with the Harvard Corporation, which he heads--has been in the news more than he might like as a result of the investment controversy. But the highest levels of University decision-making remain hidden from all but the most inquisitive students. That's the way Harvard has always operated, and nothing as transitory as student protest is likely to change it.

Until the South Africa issue began heating up almost two years ago, Bok was little more than a name, a shadowy figure connected only vaguely in students' minds with what happened to them during their stay at Harvard. And much of Bok's job really does hold little interest--the bi-weekly Corporation meetings he chairs usually discuss such exciting issues as the University pension plans or the latest fundraising venture.

But, as institutional leaders everywhere know, and as students slowly learned in the wake of the furor over investment ethics, these thousands of dull financial decisions--each insignificant in itself--add up to a carefully plotted course for the University's future. Conservatism, stability and more stability are ever behind the choices the Corporation makes. Although Harvard's phenomenal $1.4 billion endowment--nearly twice as large as Yale's the nearest competitor--looks like a sturdy nest egg to envious officials of other universities, Corporation members see only inflation and recession eating away at it. A gargantuan $250 million fund drive will kick off this fall to shore up the endowment so they can rest easy once more.

Bok oversees all the graduate schools from his venerable Massachusetts Hall office, with the aid of four vice presidents. Except when dragged out by student activists like those concerned with South Africa, he keeps out of the headlines--emerging to release his president's report, which examines a different corner of the University each year (recent topics included the Business School, the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, and relations with the federal government).

Daniel Steiner '54, general counsel to the University, is the gray eminence of Mass Hall. Steiner's job is to command Harvard's array of lawyers in their skirmishes with the local community, the federal government, and occasionally each other--different branches of the University sometime become entangled with each other, abetted by Harvard's "each tub on its own bottom" policy, which dictates sufficient. But Steiner also serves as Mass that each branch of the University be self-Hall's "eyes and ears;" during the South Africa protests, while Bok was swamped by students, he strolled unassailed among them and tried to pick up the mood of the crowd. Whatever major decisions Bok makes, you can be sure Steiner had a hand in the choice.

The seven-member Corporation-- also known as the President and Fellows of Harvard College--are the legal owners of all of the University, its land, buildings, and investments. The Fellows stay in the background most of the time, and follow Bok's lead. Dissent at this level is a rarity, controversy almost unheard of. The only Corporation member to make a name for himself among students recently is Hugh Calkins '45, chairman of the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), the Corporation front man for the South AFrica controversy.

Behind the Corporation is the even more shadowy Board of Overseers--shadowy almost to the point of insubstantiality, as far as most students are concerned. The Overseers are organized into visiting committees, one for each Harvard department or institution. What do these committees do? Well, they visit. They talk to students and faculty, bring in experts, and issue a report after it's all over. The Overseers do little else, except provide Harvard fund-raisers with a ready-made group to tap. Their president, Andrew Heiskell, is also chairman of Time, Incorporated.

And Radcliffe's Women

Perhaps the most invisible entity among the phantoms of Harvard's administration is Radcliffe. On paper, Radcliffe exists as a separate legal corporation, with control over its own finances. But since 1971 when "coresidency"--mixed dorms--was established, Radcliffe has faded from the consciousness of most students to the point where it is generally known for the Radcliffe Union of Students fee and its continuing education programs.

Matina S. Horner, Radcliffe president does about as well as you might expect in filling her indefinite role. Though no one is entirely sure exactly what she does, she is extremely accessible, considering her high position, and she holds office hours twice a week in the morning for students who want to talk.

Today Radcliffe affects undergraduates most directly in the many programs and services it sponsors, among them the Radcliffe Forum, which hosts lectures and seminars all year; the Radcliffe/Harvard Women's Center, which publishes Seventh Sister; and the Radcliffe Alumnae Career Services, which offers job-hunting advice and resources for alumnae for life.