Tactical Victory

RADCLIFFE students won a significant victory Monday when the College Council (the 'Cliffe equivalent to the Harvard Corporation) decided to invite students to its meetings. It was a victory not only for the principle of student participation but for the tactics used.

The campaign has been at all times as low-keyed as it was effective. Students stressed over and over that they were driving not toward a confrontation with College officials but cooperation. The latest example of this approach is a letter to the class president, Diane Balter, stating that one hundred plus signers "have serious reservations" about contributing to the College, because they feel they would be "supporting certain policies which we found antithetical to our needs during our years at Radcliffe." The letter specifically refers to Radcliffe raising money to build a fourth House, and not for scholarships or subsidies to let students live off-off campus. Miss Balter, in charge of soliciting the senior class, has called the letter "very lovely . . . calm and reasonable."

That it is. At the same time it hit the College where it hurt most. Though fund raisers at Fay House may not worry about the one or two thousands seniors might donate this year, it will become increasingly difficult--indeed impossible--to attract foundation support if the College cannot demonstrate that a goodly percentage of alumnae are interested in its survival.

The entire College alumnae, administration, and students--must now reexamine together the College's financial priorities, specifically the need for a fourth House, before construction workers move in.