Opening the Old Regime

THE STASI is gone. The KGB has closed its doors. Most of the autocrats of Eastern Europe are dead. Democracy has swept the world.

And stopped on the doorstep of University Hall.

You'd think that with a new president, a new provost, a new Faculty dean, a new University secretary, a new undergraduate education dean, a new Graduate School of Arts and Sciences dean, a new Kennedy School dean, a new Education School dean, a new Design School dean, a New first-year dean and even new Eliot House masters, Harvard's traditional commitment to closed-door policies, Star Chamber-like decisions and secret procedures for everything from finding a new provost to finding a new dining hall czar would have waned. Not a chance.

We have repeatedly encouraged the University to move toward more openness in its decision making structures. Repeatedly the University has ignored us. Now, with all the new faces in the Yard, there may yet be reason to hope.

Openness means more students and junior faculty involved in decision. It means bringing free discussion from the classroom to University Hall. It can mean, among other things, more ethical investment, better College Administrative Board decisions and fairer admissions policies.

OF COURSE, the University's top governing boards, the Corporation and the Board of Overseers, limit the extent to which any new set of administrators can pry open University procedures.

The Corporation (or the President and Fellows of Harvard College, for short) holds the lion's share of power. Every faculty is beholden to the Corporation. All monies are invested according to the mandates of the Corporation. In short, if you want to get something done at Harvard, the best way to do it is to snag one of the seven seats on the Corporation.

If that's too difficult, the Board of Overseers is the next best thing. But that often means schmoozing the Harvard Alumni Association sufficiently (read: donating a lot of cash or getting elected to high public office) to get onto its slate. Otherwise, you can try collecting the 279 petition signatures needed for a ballot spot--a spot plainly designated as not HAA-approved.

And in 1989, after three petition candidates had been elected to the Board of Overseers in three years, HAA changed the rules for overseers elections. Since then, no petition candidates have been elected.

Liberalizing these election procedures should be a top priority for the governing boards. After literally hundreds of years without representation, students should demand at least one seat on the board of Overseers.

Furthermore, the Corporation should hold open meetings and allow student participation--at least in an advisory role--in some decisions.

With the impending retirements of Robert G. Stone Jr. '45 and Charles P. Slichter '45, the Corporation will have to appoint itself two new members in the next few months. Now is also the time to diversify the stodgy old body, which counts only one woman among its ranks-and has never included a member of a minority group. This time, how about an author? Or a social activist? The Corporation would benefit from a broader range of opinions.

We also encourage another corporation, the Harvard Management Corporation, to open up its investment practices to wider scrutiny. The Crimson found last month that the Aeneas Group, the company charged with managing HMC's private placement portfolio, still owns large amounts of stock in firms of questionable ethics and solvency.

For example, Harvard owns 22 percent of Harken Energy Corporation, which has been charged with links to the Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI).

Furthermore, in recent years Aeneas has invested millions in high-risk stocks that have simply not paid off. And all the while, the money managers have received bonuses that would make many Wall Streeters salivate.

And while Harvard's shareholder oversight committees have some power, many of the private investments are off-limits to them.

Decisions about investments should obviously be made by professionals. But a separate body of professionals, accountable to faculty members and students, should be able to oversee each one of those investments. In addition, HMC should provide quarterly reports to the public about all of its holdings, not just a few.

In addition, we still worry about some of the sources of University donations. Earlier this year Michael Kojima, a California-based business consultant, donated $205,000 to the Kennedy School. Last week, it was disclosed that many of his former associates say he owes them hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Even the Republican Party is holding Kojima's donations to its campaign committees in escrow pending court action. Harvard, on the other hand, has already spent the money.

Falling closer to home are the budget cuts in the Faculty of Arts and sciences (FAS) this year. Due to an $11.7 million deficit, the FAS will have to continue to make tough choices about which programs, departments and projects must trim back the most.

But University officials and Faculty members shouldn't be managing the crisis by themselves. While administrators have a broader view of the problem, students are the most affected by the elimination of programs and positions and must have some say in what stays and what goes.

ONE AREA in crucial need of more openness is the College's disciplinary apparatus. Currently all cases of misconduct on campus are handled by the Administrative Board behind closed doors. This can mean poorly decided "trials" that go unchecked and unreported.

As one student-faculty-administration task force suggested this year, students should be included on Peer Dispute Subcommittees created by the Ad Board to investigate all complaints of misconduct. Put simply, the students who live in this community have a right to help decide verdicts in the disciplinary complaints brought against their peers.

This will help change the clandestine quality of the Ad Board's decisions. Important admonishments about "confidentiality" often go too far, with questionable rulings never receiving the public scrutiny they deserve--which discourages some victims from coming forward and which means some of those who are wrongly charged have no recourse.

Just as every court in America allows reporters to cover trials, the Ad Board's hearing should be open to the media as well. We do not ask for an unwieldy open forum with students able to raise questions at every turn of phrase, but we do ask that members of the community have the ability to asses the Ad Board's decisions.

Finally, the University should make available more of its information about faculty appointments procedures.

A group of law students filed suit against the Law School in 1990, charging that the school discriminates against women and minorities in faculty hiring. This year, students staged sit-ins and demonstrations to protest the dearth of women and minority faculty members.

We simply do not know whether the Law School's appointments process is discriminatory or whether the hiring criteria it uses are appropriate. What is clear is that the number of women and minority faculty is suspiciously tiny and that the Law School should be doing everything possible to diversify. Documents detailing the procedures and criteria of appointments meetings would show whether the school is really playing fair and would allow administrators and students to monitor its progress.

This is by no means an exhaustive list. Admissions policies unduly favorable to legacies and athletes, FAS tenuring, Harvard police records, the notorious search committees--all could stand a little glasnost.

In short, it seems that Harvard has moved away from what used to be--or at least what should be--its central purpose: the open discussion of ideas. The management of Harvard's money and Harvard's image often seem more important than the management of its commitment to the pursuit of truth.

In the end, openness should be seen not so much as a different direction for Harvard, but as a return from Harvard, Inc. to just plain Harvard.