Clear Indifference

UNDER A HEADLINE THAT READ "Derek Bok steers Harvard through change by consensus," Time magazine this week dropped a bombshell.

"Someone with more intellectual flair might leap past process, but it means too much to Bok," the magazine quoted an unnamed "aide" as saying. "He's almost obsessed by a need for fairness."

Although President Derek C. Bok is a decent, thoughtful man, his greatest fault is not an insatiable yen for fairness. The president is a skillful showman who gets a lot of mileage out of his trash-finding trots through the Yard.

The contents of the speech, titled "The University and Its Community," which Bok will deliver this afternoon have not been released yet. But barring any unexpected, new policy statements, the speech will operate in the same tired context: Bok presides over a University decision-making process that excludes students and alumni from discussions that affect them.

If Bok's no doubt decent, thoughtful remarks don't address that, remember that Bok knows how to please a crowd.

When the eyes of the world aren't upon them, however, Harvard administrators are too willing to protect this place from the outside world and to discount the judgments of students and alums.

Bok drove that lesson home to alums last year.

Although administrators review the backgrounds of most Board of Overseers candidates and present alums with an endorsed slate to chose from, several ran without University backing last year.

While unusual, such write-in candidacies are not prohibited and have occured in the past. When the candidates publicly called for Harvard's divestment of South Africa-related stock, however, a University administrator sent alums a long, preachy letter about the mission of the largely ceremonial board. It not-so-subtly maligned the pro-divestment candidates.

Only after the media began scrutinizing Harvard's electioneering did it become public that Bok authorized the letter. At a time when the University will need all the imagination it can muster to remain a leading player in an increasingly competitive academic marketplace, Harvard is no more anxious to respect the views of students or concerned outsiders.

Further proof came last March, when the University scrapped plans to send students to teach in South African schools.

The cancellation came after it became public that Black South African leaders, including Nobel laureate Bishop Desmond M. Tutu, never were consulted about the program's value. Tutu and the others believed the initiative would harm South Africa's Black majority.

Earlier, an administrator, ignoring objections by students, censored unflattering evaluations of several classes from the CUE Guide, a book billed as student-written.

As shabby as last year's record appears, a collection of alums clearing Harvard decisions by roll-call vote in Tercentenary Theater each June would be no improvement. It is unclear what Harvard is, but it is not a Greek city-state.

Nontheless, given the clear indifference of the professional administrators to the sentiments of the University's constituencies, changes must be made.

This is a vital community. Any laundry list of reforms would be outdated almost by the time it could be printed.

That is why Harvard pays for the judgment of professional administrators. If that judgement more perfectly respected what those administrators supposedly serve, Harvard government would be more or less satisfactory.

Alums, with their checks and money orders, can help make that happen. The development office sees those checks as thank-yous for a pleasant party or as tangible expressions of nostalgia for a past that never was. But they could be thoughtful evaluation of Harvard's progress toward a grand future.

All that is necessary is for each alum to consider how far the themes of Bok's decent, thoughtful address are advanced next year and to give accordingly.