Women Begin Organizing

After several attempts to catalyze a strong commitment to Affirmative Action on the part of the Administration, women employed by Mother Harvard took a giant leap this week to mobilize support for a permanent women's organization.

A meeting Wednesday night drew about 100 women Corporation appointees, who united to set in motion plans for a broadly-based organization.

Supporters apparently envision a union of Harvard women employees that would include faculty, administrative assistants, librarians, teaching fellows and graduate students, research technicians, and Buildings and Grounds and Food Services employees.

Their master plan may include the hiring of a full-time coordinator for the proposed women's organization. And to facilitate such an appointment, the women may collect dues in accordance with a graduated income tax scheme, whereby members would contribute according to their ability to do so.

At Wednesday's meeting, the women organized a temporary volunteer steering committee to draft a proposal for the organization and to lay plans for a forthcoming meeting of all women employed by the University.

All of the Corporation's women appointees were invited to attend the Wednesday meeting, which was called by 32 of their colleagues to discuss the status of the University's Affirmative Action program.

The proposal for the full-time administrator was made by Barbara G. Rosenkrantz, lecturer in the History of Science, apparently in response to the consensus that the task of contacting women employees in the University requires substantial time and access to mailing lists, which the women claim are not readily available.

Most of the women who attended Wednesday's lengthy session said they were encouraged by the outcome of the meeting, many citing the diversity of their supporters' occupations and ages.

"It wasn't your general rag-tag graduate students, pissed-off type meeting," Margaret A. Mills, president of the Graduate Women's Organization, said of the Wednesday session.