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Corporation Group Will Vote Proxies

By Robert Decherd

President Bok announced yesterday that a four-man sub-committee of the Corporation will decide all future questions of the University's responsibility as a corporate shareholder.

Bok also said that a 15-member advisory committee made up of five students, five faculty members and five alumni will advise the Corporation subcommittee.

The appointment of Hugh Calkins '45, Albert L. Nickerson '33, Charles P. Slichter'45 and George F.Bennett '33, to resolve shareholder issues effectively removes Bok from the center of stock controversies.

Bennett's position on the subcommittee will be taken by his successor when Bennett resigns as Treasurer of the College on January 1.

Bok said yesterday that the subcommittee will bear full responsibility for voting Harvard proxies and, in consultation with the advisory committee and the Treasurer's office, will formulate the University's overall investments policy.

Bok explained his absense from the subcommittee by recalling last Spring's covey of proxy fights and disclosure resolutions. "I spent more than a quarter of my time last Spring on shareholder questions, and I just can't do that and still be able to do all of the things that are expected of me in various areas of the University," he said.

Possible criticism of his self-removal from direct involvement in shareholder questions is outweighed by these other responsibilities, Bok said.

The Corporation subcommittee will generate "a more factual and orderly discussion of the issues" involved with Harvard's investments, according to Bok.

There is currently no chairman of the subcommittee. Its membership spans three fields: Calkins is a Cleveland lawyer, Slichter is a professor at the University of Ill'nois, and Nickerson and Bennett are investment bankers.

The student-faculty-alumni advisory committee is styled after similar groups established during the past three years at MIT. Dartmouth. Yale, Princeton, Stanford and Cornell.

Appointments to the advisory committee will be made by Bok upon the recommendation of the deans, in the case of students and faculty, and the president of the Associated Harvard Alumni.

Faculty representation will be split among the various professional schools and the Faculty of Arts and Sciences. Two positions will be filled from the Faculty, two from among the Business, Law and Medical schools on a rotating basis, and one from among the other graduate schools.

Two undergraduates, nominated by Dean Whitlock in consultation with the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life, the Committee on Students and Community Relations, and other "interested" groups, will sit on the advisory group.

Two others will come from the GSAS, the Law School and the Business School, and another will be drawn from the remaining graduate schools on a rotating basis.

Bok said that the advisory group will meet "as often as necessary" to provide the Corporation with "well-founded recommendations." This role, he said, will mean that most alumni on the committee will come from the Boston area

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