Obviously, that was Bok's way of saying times had changed. And now Harvard was changing.

IN NO WAY do these three events mean the University has fulfilled its obligation to its students and faculty, to the community and to the nation.

There are a variety of issues--both social and academic--that Harvard must continue to combat. It must solve the questions associated with its South African investments. It must answer problems of race relations on campus, problems that often have been addressed but never answered. It must make the same commitment Yale made a year ago to boost the number of women and minorities on the faculty. It must continue to address the ethical problems of CIA funding of scholarly research and must continue to look for ways to improve the education it offers its students. In the community, it must seek to help those it has displaced and inconvenienced because of its expansion. And it must continue to provide the nation with professionals and public servants who value the welfare of others as much as their own.

But the University's recent actions regarding sexual harassment, final clubs and discrimination--which each dealt with the most fundamental questions of equal rights and equal access--prove that this place is capable of change, capable of solving those problems that do still exist. Those problems probably won't be solved today, tomorrow or within a year. Most of them probably won't be solved by the time the Class of 1989 graduates.

To say, though, as many students do, that Harvard doesn't want to attack those problems is unfair, even irresponsible.

I truly believe Harvard is better than that.

SOME STUDENTS, I'M AFRAID, do not agree with me.

Many here view the University as inherently evil, as a bastion of old ways and old ideas that will never change.

I guess that's why some self-appointed shock troops of change found it acceptable to kidnap a visiting South African diplomat in a Lowell House room last spring to protest the University's investments in the diplomat's country.

I guess that's why others found it acceptable to trespass on private property last spring and stage a day-long sit-in that disrupted normal University business for the same reasons as those who committed a federal crime at Lowell House.

I guess that's why some junior senators on the Undergraduate Council--which wastes almost one-third of its $60,000 annual budget on bureaucratic nonsense--mistakenly believe that their fledgling body needs to attack political issues, and Harvard's administration along the way.

And I guess that's why many around the country were so quick to blame the University two weeks ago for not allowing several homeless men to sleep on heating grates behind Leverett House. Never mind the fact that several incidents with the men had almost resulted in a serious accident.

The University, it seems, is always to blame.

Even The Crimson often fails to give Harvard the benefit of the doubt. Last February, The Crimson pooh-poohed the handling of the Hibbs resignation, saying the University didn't make enough information about the case available to the public to make it credible. And like many students around here, The Crimson continues to view Derek Bok as a Villain, as one who has isolated himself from undergraduates because he does not wish to debate his views on South Africa with them.

Derek Bok, I can assure you, is not an evil man. And for the life of me, I cannot figure out the attraction of University bashing.