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.