When you own stock in a company, it entitles you not only to a share of the company's earnings--paid usually as quarterly dividends--but also a vote on company policy. Generally, for each share of common stock you own, you get one vote.

The company's ballot is called a proxy, and most companies send out their proxies each winter or spring along with their annual reports. Shareholders can mail in their votes before the annual corporate meeting--which most companies hold in April or May--or cast them at the meeting itself, where all votes are tabulated.

Proxies generally cover fairly routine matters: they ask shareholders to vote on the election of a board of directors or reapprove an auditing firm the company has chosen.

But a certain variety of proxy vote--known as a shareholder petition--can give concerned stockholders an opportunity to press for change in company policy for ethical reasons. Among questions which shareholders have had added to company proxies in recent years are proposals to ban work on nuclear arms, stop sales of computer technology to the Soviet Union, and, for companies with South African operations, implement the Sullivan Principles and Tutu Principles. These are a series of guidelines designed to improve working conditions for Black employees in the apartheid state (see box on this page).

Investment experts generally say that shareholder petitions are effective even if only 10 or 20 percent of voting shareholders support them. As long as a substantial minority of shareholders registers registers concern about a certain aspect of company policy, experts say, the directors often will take note of the concern and consider changes.

So how does any of this affect the University? Harvard has the potential to be a major player on proxy issues because a large portion of its $2.3 billion endowment is invested in stocks, bonds and other securities, including as Treasury bills, venture capital and money-market accounts. Because of daily trading, the percentage of endowment invested in each of those areas fluctuates, but generally at least 50 percent of the endowment is in stocks. And, like any stockholder, Harvard is regularly asked to vote on a wide range of proxy issues.

Income from those stock and other investments--along with tuition, government grants, and alumni donations--makes for a major portion of the budgets of each of Harvard's 10 faculties and numerous other departments. In the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, for example, interest on the endowment provides about 25 percent of this year's $190 million budget.

The seven-man governing Corporation, which includes President Bok, Treasurer Roderick M. MacDougall '51, and the five "Fellows" of the College, has the final say over how the endowment is invested, and also over how Harvard votes on proxies.

To advise it on how to vote shareholder petitions, the Corporation, in 1972 created the Advisory Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (ACSR), a 12-member group composed in equal parts of alumni, students and faculty. The ACSR's recommendations are advisory to a subcommittee of the Corporation itself, the four-member Corporation Committee on Shareholder Responsibility (CCSR). The body makes a final review of all proxy votes and makes recommended as to the full seven-man governing body.

The following is a list of South-Africa related shareholder petitions which have been submitted to companies in which Harvard owns stock. All of these petitions have been proposed for inclusion in upcoming proxies, but in some cases the exact proxy has not yet been finalized.

The source of the following list is the Investor Responsibility Research Center in Washington, D.C., a public-interest group which monitors ethical issues related to corporate operations. Data on company size is from the 1984 Standard and Poor's Register and from company spokesmen. Because the University publishes a full list of its investment holdings only once a year, figures for Harvard's holdings in each company are as of the June 30m 1984 tabulation. Each company listed was still in the Harvard portfolio as of February, according to the ACSR.

The list is not necessarily complete, because Harvard may sell its stock in these companies or the petitions may not appear on the proxy. In addition, the schedule for ACSR and Corporation review of these proxy issues could not be determined.

Bucyrus-Erie, South Milwaukee, Wise.

Size: 5300 employees. 1983 sales: $687.35 million.

Business: Makes construction, mining and petroleum-related equipment.