But Scott said the changes were implemented tomake the report more interesting and readable."Our goal was to make our financial report looklike the report of a regular corporation and tomake it more readable to those used to readingsuch reports," he said.

Scott said details of Harvard's actual holdingsare not as important. "The breakdown of stocksheld is not particularly interesting because itchanges all the time," he said. "At least I don'tthink it is particularly interesting."

But Gordon disputed that argument. "I don'tagree with him at all; [the stockholdings] arevery interesting," said Gordon. "If you saw thatthey had drug companies, food companies, sometechnology companies, I would be impressed. But ifyou saw that they had a bunch of steel companies,utilities, and oil companies, I would say thesepeople were asleep at the switch."

Gordon, who has been critical of theUniversity's failure to disclose its high-riskprivate placement holdings, said the latest movewas a means of maintaining a consistent policy atthe expense of accuracy.

"It seems to be an incomplete policy which theyhave recognized as inconsistent and to make itconsistent they've cut out more information,"Gordon said. "They're probably embarrassed bytheir holdings."

The financial report also says that Harvard'sincome from the endowment, research support,tuition and gifts increased last year by 7.2percent to $1,224.8 million. The 11.8 percent rateof return for fiscal 1992 was a marked improvementfrom the previous year, but still laggedsignificantly behind the national average forcolleges and universities.

Had Harvard's investments performed at thenational average, the University's endowment wouldhave generated about $45 million more.

Stephen E. Frank contributed to thereporting of this article.