Taking Over

LAST week Harvard announced recommended changes to the Board of Overseers voting system which are designed to "educate the electorate" and "invigorate the processes" by which Board members are selected. These are noble goals, indeed, but the proposed changes would draw the ballot closer to cronyism than model governance.

The 30-member Board, elected by alumni and chartered to advise the seven-man Corporation that runs the University, is the only institutionalized forum for outside input into Harvard's governing process and the only one that pretends to democracy.

The proposed changes to Board elections would allow Harvard to garner leaders in many fields for Board membership and enhance the expertise of the visiting committees which Board members serve on, asserted the head of the committee that issued last week's report. The changes would step up the administration's role in selecting Board members; in fact, they would increase the chances that candidates recruited by the administration would win, he said. And that's the problem.

In recent years, the administration has intruded on the Board's decision-making process. Now, instead of working to control members of the Board, the administration is proposing to control who gets on the Board in the first place.

Thomas Jefferson had the right formula for governance when he wrote that "reason and free inquiry are the only effectual agents against error." Apparently, the words of the architect of democracy have little connection with Harvard; how can the Board fairly review the administration's decisions if it is chosen by that administration?

THE recommended changes attempt to eradicate what little freedom of choice remains in Board elections. University alumni elect five Board members annually, for which Harvard has usually recruited a slate of 10. In recent years, alumni intent on turning around Harvard's refusal to divest from companies doing business in South Africa have also sponsored a slate of candidates, using petition nominations to get three elected.

The policy changes would boost the hand-picked candidates' chance of winning. Harvard would only field a slate of eight candidates, thereby reducing risk of splitting the vote among candidates. A top University official would act as an "executive search director" to recruit candidates. Petition candidates would have to present 800 signatures, instead of the current 250, to gain a place on the ballot.

The changes would also skew the very process of voting in the administration's favor. University candidates would be listed first on the ballot followed by petition nominees, instead of in the currently random order. Harvard would send a report to alumni promoting its slate. Ballots would be counted by the Harvard Alumni Records Office, rather than an independent accounting firm.

ELECTIONEERING never seemed so easy; at least, it hasn't since the last time Harvard interferred in the ballot process.

When pro-divestment candidates began to run for the Board in the spring of 1986, aiming to make some mark on the decision-making process, the administration moved swiftly to block their path. President Bok directed Board President Joan T. Bok '51 (no relation to President Bok) to send a letter to alumni in the same packet as ballots asking them not to vote for single-issue candidates, specifically the pro-divestment slate.

Then last year, Bok's mouthpiece, Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54, flew around the country explaining the University's position against divestment to Board members--and urging them against even taking up the issue at their meeting. Now that the Board has delegated away thinking about divestment to a subcommittee, Steiner is working with that committee--presumably to direct its work into the administration's camp.

THE Board seems to be relegated to the observer role that visiting committees take on when they descend once a year on campus. It is a role of honor and prestige, but little substance. Harvard deserves better, and ought to reject the proposed changes in Board election procedures.

Packed with University nominees, the Board has traditionally skirted most major issues of contention, from divestment to opening the governing bodies' closed meetings to student input.

If the Board fails to review key policies--and if the administration sees to it that it fails, by controlling the character of its members--there is little hope for alumni to have any say at all in the policies of the university that they are called on to support, financially and morally.

When alumni voted in the last election, they were faced with the decision between a slate of distinguished University nominees and equally distinguished petition candidates--nominated for their qualifications and pro-divestment views. Shouldn't alumni be allowed, free from the administration's interference and subtle hints, to make a choice between the two?