Riesman Predicts Merger Of University, Radcliffe

Harvard and Radcliffe are "already co-educational," David Riesman, Henry Ford II Professor of Social Sciences, declared yesterday. "Still further integration is the only reasonable path left open to them now," he added.

The "co-educational direction in which things are moving makes sense to me," Riesman said. He mentioned specifically the Monday meeting of the University Overseers' Committee at the Radcliffe Quad, and the recent merger of two Houses with Annex dormitories.

Although Riesman admitted that he was not very "sanguine" about the prospect of a complete merger at this time, he posited that sometime in the future, Radcliffe will become a college of the University.

"Since Radcliffe shares the Harvard Faculty, it is difficult for me to see how she can use her independence," he said. Administrative independence does not seem very valuable, he claimed, if its main purpose is to gain privileges for Annex students.

Riesman declared that further integration would enable Radcliffe to help Harvard by developing a more liberal, less career-oriented, attitude toward education. On the other hand, he said that further integration would "hopefully" make girls less "anti-career."

During college, able girls should "take charge," he emphasized. "They must run the CRIMSON, instead of just being reporters."

Riesman asserted, however, that coeducation is not necessarily the best education. He agreed with Lionel Trilling that since this is a "male dominated world, girls have to get an education as bad as that the men are getting, in order to think they are getting a good education."