Horner is Inaugurated, The Sun Shines

Matina S. Horner was inaugurated as the sixth President of Radcliffe Thursday before an enthusiastic crowd of about 300.

Thursday's ceremony marked only the formal assumption of the president Horner has actually held the office and performed its duties since July 1 when she succeeded the retiring President Mars I. Bunting.

The inauguration took place in the morning in Agassiz House which was built 70 years ago in honor of Radcliffe's first president. Elizabeth Cary Agassiz. The guests, nearly all of them women, represented Radcliffe trustees alumnae, students and members of the Harvard and Radcliffe administration.

Horner had requested that there be no academic procession, and the ceremony was relatively simple, with no one in flowing robes except His Eminence. Archbishop Iakovos of the Greek Orthodox Church.

After an invocation by His Eminence, Beth I. Best '47, president of the Radcliffe Alumnae Association, and Lynn Sakai '73, president of the Radcliffe senior class, greeted the guests. The Radcliffe Choral Society sang, as the sun shone for the first time since the national election a week and a half ago.

Horner was installed by Susan S. Lyman '49, chairman of the Radcliffe Board of Trustees, who presented her with symbols of the office: the 1894 College 'Charter, and a silver key attached to a disc engraved with MSH and the inaugural date.

In here inaugural speech. Horner said that she was excited by the unique nature of our present relationship with Harvard.

"Our two institutions resisted the temptation to follow national trends or to succumb to pressures, political, financial and Federal for complete coeducation total merger," she said. "They have thus given us an especially great opportunity for educational innovation.

She went on to say that her major tasks for the future would be to help our students develop a strong sense of their own worth gain confidence in themselves as they master academic and social skills, and ultimately counteract the tendency to withdraw from the mainstream of thought and achievement in our society."

At a champagne luncheon held in Hemenway Gymnasium immediately after the inauguration. President Bok praised Horner and emphasized that the future of Radcliffe is ultimately for Radcliffe to decide."

Bok closed by saying that he could not be more optimistic" about the course that Radcliffe will chart for herself.