A Public Forum

This week's decision by the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR) to hold an open forum represents the one concrete development to emerge from the recent flurry of pre-proxy season rumblings among members of the Corporation and the ACSR.

ACSR members voted Tuesday to hold a public meeting April 7 on the decisions they must make during this spring's round of annual corporate meetings. The action was a response to a proposal from the ACSR's own subcommittee on improving the University community's contact with the ACSR.

Hugh Calkins '45, member of the Corporation and chairman of the Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR), this week pledged to reduce Harvard's rate of abstention on stockholder resolutions through improved "procedural efficiency" in its relations with the ACSR.

But the Corporation has made no specific request for a revision in the present method the ACSR uses to make its recommendations to the Corporation, Lawrence F. Stevens '65, secretary of the ACSR, said yesterday.

Stevens added that the ACSR has independently begun considering several means of improving its efficiency.

The committee will soon consider a proposal to streamline its present ad hoc review process, and members also hope to formulate general policies that will apply to those occasions when several resolutions concern similar issues.

Despite statements several weeks ago from members of the Corporation that it will consider revising Harvard's current policy committing the Corporation to divest of investments in banks extending loans to the South African government, ACSR members have received no notification of the Corporation's intentions along those lines.

Meanwhile, the ACSR will face its first decision on a shareholder resolution April 16. All its efforts to maximize efficiency will pay off if it can be ready to recommend to the Corporation whether a ban on computer sales to the Soviet Union by Texas Instruments should take place.