Annex Plans $3,500,000 Grad Center for Women Scholars

Radcliffe is going to build a $3,500,000 graduate center. All it is waiting for is a donor, Dean of the Graduate School Bernice B. Cronkhite told the CRIMSON yesterday.

The proposed world center for women scholars will stand on Annex-owned property between Brattle and Ash Streets, near Greenleaf House.

The center will contain, according to present plans, a large common room, a library, recreation facilities, a basement "club room" for entertaining guests, eating accommodations for 350, bedrooms for 100, and suites for visiting lecturers and advanced women scholars.

Million for Endowment

Dean Cronkhite and President Jordan head a national committee of 35 to raise an estimated $2,500,000 for construction and an additional $1,000,000 for endowment.

Also on the "Development Fund" board are Dean David of the Business School, David E. Lilienthal, Howard Mumford James, professor of English, and Arthur M. Schlesinger, Francis Lee Higginson Professor of History.

Final selection of architect and architectural style will rest, with the center's benefactor, who will also receive a permanent suite in the building. A tentative model shows a "Georgian" building constructed around three sides of a rectangular courtyard.

Annex administrators have had a graduate center in their long-range plans for 15 years. A pamphlet sent to possible donors by Dean Cronkhite declares that a living community is essential to "prevent the deadening and narrowing effects of isolation and over-specialization."

Lived Outside

At present, almost all of the 372 Radclice graduate students live in scattered homes in Cambridge. The present enrollment includes graduates of 147 colleges and universities throughout the world. During the last five years, the school has had students from 37 foreign countries.

Radcliffe ranks third only to Columbia and the University of Chicago in number of doctorates conferred upon women, according to the latest annual tabulation. It offers its graduate students no physical plant of its own, but almost all the academic facilities of the University are at their disposal.

Harvard's graduate center, which opened in September, cost $3,000,000.