Word: chartering
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...rules Harvard? According to the university charter, final authority is vested in the 32-man board of overseers, or trustees; in practice, most major policy decisions are handled by the Harvard Corporation, a seven-member council that includes President Nathan Pusey, Treasurer George Bennett and five alumni (who choose their own successors). But the six-day student strike, an event for which the administration was ill prepared, subtly changed the balance of power at Harvard. Each element in the academic community in turn asserted its right to speak for the university and to prescribe cures for the institution...
...formal structures of the government probably cannot be changed. The Charter of 1650 which the province of Massachusetts-Bay granted to Harvard College indicates that the Corporation--specifically composed of the President, Treasurer, and five Fellows--and the Board of Overseers shall be the governing bodies of the university. The state constitution, adopted in 1780 and still in effect, bestows on the Corporation "forever" all the rights which they had enjoyed in colonial days...
...makes all permanent appointments in the University; it meets every other Monday morning for about three hours in Massachusetts Hall. The Board of Overseers meets about once every month, except during the summer, to approve Corporation decisions and appointments. This general pattern of responsibility is specified in the Charter and its Appendix...
...There are no restrictions on Corporation membership, except the new appointments must win consent from the Board of Overseers. The 1650 Charter states that the Corporation has "perpetual succession," so its members fill any vacancies themselves. It could choose anyone--students, faculty, Cambridge police--with consent of the Overseers, though traditionally it selects only Harvard College graduates (with the current exception of William L. Marbury, whose only Harvard degree is from the Law School...
...that they would take effect only after being approved by the Corporation and the Overseers. This clause might simply represent courtesy on the part of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but more likely it is an essential provision. In Dartmouth College v. Woodward (1819), John Marshall ruled that a state charter cannot be altered without approval of the corporation's governing body. Since the Harvard Charter of 1659 does not specify that the legislature granted it on condition of being able to change it at will, Harvard might be protected under the Dartmouth College decision. In that case, the University...