But according to several Harvard graduates, ifHMC had simply managed the University's moneyproperly, the need for the entire capital campaignwould be erased.

"There are all kinds of wonderful things thatthey could have done, had they not wasted all thismoney in the endowment," one major contributorsaid. "Because Harvard's leaders were satisfiedwith mediocre performance, this is what itproduced in terms of lost opportunity."

Meyer himself has said that HMC'sresponsibility is not simply to meet the nationalaverage of endowment performance but to surpass itby a meaningful margin, something he conceded hasnot happened for several years.

"I don't think it's our role to keep pace. Ithink our role is to do better," he said.

But the HMC president said that no investmentorganization is without its share of poorperformance years, noting that Harvard has beenhit especially hard recently by a soft real estatemarket and low gas prices. The managementcompany's performance needs to be judged over thelong term, he said.

"I think over time our policy portfolio willslightly outperform the average universityendowment, and I think that we will succeed inmodestly outperforming the policy portfolio," hesaid. "Put the two together, and we'll have a nicerecord."

Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine agrees.

"How you evaluate performance, I think, isprobably something you want to do comparativelyover a long period of time...certainly a decade,and in most cases longer," Rudenstine said."Mostly, we look in terms of literally 25 to 30years to see whether the endowment has maintainedits purchasing power."

But many alumni, themselves experts in theinvestment industry, dispute that argument.

"It occurs to me that that is a completely weakand shamelessly transparent justification formediocre performance," said one alumnus and majorcontributor. "It's tragic that these guys havejust totally abdicated their fiduciaryresponsibility."

"When you're dealing with a broad basedportfolio, and talking about billions of dollars,it's a little tough to say that somehow you'regoing to have unsystematic returns that shoot youway down into the lower ranks," said another. "Youcan be a little bit off for a while, but if you'reway off the money you've got to ask some prettypenetrating questions."

Several finance experts said that theperformance of most investment managers is judgedover three to five years. Anything more, theysaid, increases job security to the point that itdecreases the incentive to perform.

"I know many places where they're evaluatedevery six months," said longtime Harvardbenefactor Albert F. Gordon '59. "Twenty or 30years is meaningless."

And George F. Bennett '33, a former Harvardtreasurer who managed the University's endowmentduring a period of explosive growth after WorldWar II--and before the creation of HMC--agrees.

"I think a management company has to produceresults in three to five years," Bennett said."Some might argue that five years is too long, andmaybe it is."