President Horner is in the process of selecting members for a Radcliffe committee similar in purpose and structure to the Harvard Corporation's Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), Susan Lyman, chairman of the Radcliffe Board of Trustees, said, yesterday.
The committee's priority will be to advise Radcliffe trustees on the college's investments in corporations active in South Africa, Lyman said.
The eight or nine-member committee will include Radcliffe students, faculty and alumni parents of Radcliffe students, she added.
Committee members will have experience in financial matters and will "adequately represent every group" in the Radcliffe community, Lyman said. Two or three undergraduates will be selected, she said.
Debbie Cohn '81, a member of the South Africa Solidarity Committee, said yesterday President Horner should appoint a large proportion of students to the committee to ensure a diversity of input in the decision making.
President Horner "should take strides to avoid the situation in the ACSR where the recommendations are predictable," Cohn added.
In a statement approved by SASC two weeks ago SASC members said they "consider it ridiculous and pointless to deal with a committee (the ACSR) hand-picked by the administration to make only those recommendations the Corporation is willing to accept."
Lawrence F. Stevens, administrative assistant in the office of the general counsel and secretary of the ACSR, said last week the committee is not designed to be a body selected democratically because of the nature of its work.
The committee is not designed to "represent a certain group" in the Radcliffe community but will be comprised of people "concerned with the moral questions" and "knowledgeable on the political and economic issues" of certain investments, Burton I. Wolfman, administrative dean of Radcliffe, said yesterday.
The committee's primary function will be to formulate "informed judgements" on Radcliffe's investments "to guide the Board of Trustees and the finance committee," Wolfman said.
Although the committee will occasionally work in concert with the ACSR and tap its "tremendous" amount of research, it will be encouraged to come to its own conclusions on the nature of Radcliffe's investments, Lyman said. The committee's first meeting is scheduled after Christmas vacation.
President Horner could not be reached for comment yesterday.
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