Word: coops
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: during 1990-1999
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
Board meetings are closed to Coop members, as are the minutes of those meetings. Agendas to the meetings are not made public, nor does the Coop hold an annual meeting--a standard in the corporate world...
...THIS year's election of student members to the board of directors of the Harvard Cooperative Society is any indication, democracy in America is in sad shape. The Coop sent some 25,000 ballots to students at Harvard and MIT; about 5 to 10 percent are expected to be sent back. Student members of the Coop--roughly analogous to shareholders in a corporation--must vote on the basis of a small pamphlet containing condensed resumes of each of the candidates. Nary an issue is mentioned...
...Coop does face real challenges that any involved stockholder would want to know about--issues on which a real corporate election would be based. Should the Coop continue to expand, or roll back its investment strategy and increase rebates? Is the Coop solely a business, or does it have an extra responsibility to students and staff of Harvard and MIT? These general priorities are tested in the basic decisions made by members of the board...
...election such a joke? It isn't because--as some suspect--student directors have little power. In fact, students comprise 11 of the 23 members of the board of directors and represent two of the four stockholders of the corporation. According to the Coop's by-laws, any seven directors can call a meeting and constitute a quorum. A renegade group of seven student directors could thus shake things up quite a bit if they so chose...
...candidates made real promises, it would be impossible to check whether they ever followed through on them. It is impossible to check whether the candidates even attended any meetings, much less find out how they voted. Such information is not made available, according to the assistant to the Coop's president...