Radcliffe: On the Rebound?

She takes courses from Harvard's faculty, eats her meals in Harvard's dining halls, uses Harvard's libraries, laboratories and classrooms, and lives in Harvard's dormitories.

Busy availing herself of these Harvard facilities, the undergraduate woman rarely, if ever, encounters the institution that theoretically exists mainly for her sake: Radcliffe. Harvard and the daily life it offers are reality; Radcliffe is simply a symbol with a venerable name, a decrepit vessel steadily slipping into the sea of Harvard bureaucracy. In some ways, the Centennial celebrations this year have only reinforced this notion; Radcliffe for many has come to mean a group of old ladies who drink tea and reminisce about the good old days at the Quad.

But Radcliffe does have another definition beyond its identity as a meaningless name or a fond memory: it is a chartered corporation with a $16 million annual budget. Financially independent from Harvard, it is run by a 38-member Board of Trustees and is technically responsible for the education of the women it admits. Although recent agreements with Harvard delegated the day-to-day responsibility for the education of undergraduate women to Harvard, members of the Board of Trustees claim that Radcliffe is more influential in the lives of undergraduate women now than it ever has been. But if that's true, something has been lost in the translation.

Radcliffe's charter of 1894 mandates that the corporation work to provide a Harvard education for undergraduate women. Although this objective was certainly top priority in the late 1800's, the charter also included a second objective: to promote higher education for women in general. As Radcliffe came close to achieving the first mandate, the second stirred from its over 50-year sleep. Subsequently, the Radcliffe Board has focused in the past 20 years on many programs designed primarily for women who have already received bachelors degrees.

Although the Board insists that its programs like the Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America--the foremost library of its kind in the U.S.--indirectly affect undergraduates by educating those who teach at Harvard, undergraduates say they derive little warmth from that fire. The real question, they say, is whether Radcliffe, having virtually achieved its goal of opening a Harvard education to women, should now fold itself into the Harvard Corporation, Pembroke-Brown style, or at least disassociate itself and its programs from Harvard.

A recent financial aid controversy caused some undergraduate women to feel that instead of helping them, Radcliffe was standing in their way. Because it is an independent corporation, Radcliffe applies separately for federal financial aid programs to support undergraduate women. In 1977-78, Radcliffe bumbled its management of work-study funds, and women in severe financial straits watched relatively well-off Harvard men take the work-study jobs. Radcliffe eventually negotiated a transfer of work-study funds from Harvard to Radcliffe coffers without jeopardizing the school's independent status, supposedly crucial for other grant eligibility. But some undergraduate women knew only that they could not get work study money because they were women.

One Trustee who acknowledges the anomaly between the negative undergraduate perception of Radcliffe and the Board's insistence on its renewed vitality is Matina S. Horner, Radcliffe's president. "Before I became president, all I knew about Radcliffe was that as a teacher I got two sheets for grades at the end of the semester and all the grades for women went on one that said 'Radcliffe,'" she says. Horner believes Radcliffe's identity became even more confusing when coresidency was established in 1971, and as most Harvard opportunities opened to women. But she insists the fog has been clearing since the 1977 agreement with Harvard which specifically defined and enlarged Radcliffe's role in policymaking and gave the Radcliffe Corporation financial autonomy. With guidelines established and financial independence achieved, Radcliffe is now free to develop new programs to enrich the lives of undergraduate women, she says. In short, she believes Radcliffe is on the rebound.

Maybe so. The Board claims it has been working hard since 1977 to give Radcliffe a much-needed facelift. One obvious change in Radcliffe is a bureaucratic one. While the Harvard Corporation seems to prefer a low profile, the Radcliffe Trustees are actively soliciting student and community input. Student representatives attend the four annual Board meetings and the Board sends representatives to neighborhood council meetings in Cambridge, Susan Storey Lyman '49, chairman of the Board, says Radcliffe feels a strong need to avoid the "town-gown" problem characteristic of the relationship between Harvard and Cambridge. "We've learned from Harvard's mistakes," she says.

Radcliffe's Board of Trustees consciously tries to avoid imitating Harvard's two main administrative bodies. Unlike Harvard, Radcliffe prefers to nominate Trustees who will not need to travel large distances to get to meetings or who do not have very time-consuming jobs. Lyman, who like the other members of the board receives no compensation for her work, says, "It's a very expensive job, but there's work to be done. The Harvard Overseers just haven't got time to do the really gritty work."

Apparently, the work is at its grittiest now. For Radcliffe, financial independence means the freedom to develop some of the programs which suffered from 1971 to 1977, years Harvard had control of the purse strings. But financial freedom entails responsibility, too, and the Board is now saddled with the obligation of raising its own funds for endowment and capital improvement.

Of its $16.7 million budget, $11.6 million is used for tuition for Radcliffe women, $1 million for undergraduate financial aid for women, and the $5 million balance for administration and programs. Five million is not enough to run Radcliffe, the Board feels, so this year it launched a Century Fund Drive to bring alumni annual giving to $1 million in three years and to raise $10 million over the next five years to improve existing programs.

Radcliffe's desire to regain financial control was a major reason it insisted on the 1977 agreement. Lyman explains, "When you fold your corporation into another corporation, it's over--you eliminate any power you have. And Harvard had other uses for our money." Harvard may not, for example, feel the same urgency about maintaining Radcliffe's Bunting Institute or its Data Resource center, both of which provide opportunities for women's studies research.

And while the Harvard Board of Overseers and the Harvard Corporation have moved uncomfortably into the limelight because of the way it is handling investments in companies which operate in South Africa, Radcliffe has quietly pursued its own means of dealing with the divestiture issue. Says Burton I. Wolfman, administrative dean of Radcliffe (and one of the dozen or so men affiliated with the administration of Radcliffe), "The easiest thing for us to do would be what Harvard is doing. But instead we're cautiously trying to discover our own way to see if we can get a broader perspective on the whole issue of our investment policy."

Hope Wigglesworth, director of development and alumnae affairs at Radcliffe, agrees that Radcliffe's financial separation from Harvard gives it freedom to address moral issues in its own way. "We feel very strongly about the accountability of our money," she maintains.

But despite the progress Radcliffe has made in remolding its administration and allocating its money, its effectiveness as an institution for undergraduates remains in doubt. Although its projects may be excellent, their bearing on undergraduate life seems minimal at best. Lyman admits that Radcliffe's programs seem more prominent outside the campus--"the freshman might not know we exist at all." She insists, however, that the Board is trying to concentrate on improving undergraduate life by building the athletic center at the Quad, channeling money into an Office for the Arts, and sponsoring speakers in a Radcliffe Forum program, among other efforts.

In addition, Radcliffe supports programs for continuing education and guidance for its graduates. Nancy Downey, administrative director of the Radcliffe seminar program, says almost 1200 women participated in seminars this year. One seminar in middle management teaches business techniques to women who have been out of school for several years as an alternative to the rigors of the Harvard Business School.

But the most important influence of Radcliffe on undergraduate life, according to Lyman, is Horner's increased clout in policymaking decisions since the 1977 clarifying agreement. "We (the Board) are all here to support her, and Matina is heard. She's got to be heard." Horner now sits in on many of Harvard's policymaking committees--but she's quick to distinguish between policy-and decision-making. "Policy's not day-to-day management," she notes, "but it's now clearer that Radcliffe is not under Harvard but has an equal responsibility for its students."

Horner also believes that Radcliffe's duty to fulfill its first mandate is not over yet. "If equal access to a Harvard education means becoming one of the boys--if it's an end and not a means--then that's not what we want. Radcliffe cannot be absorbed, assimilated or co-opted into the pie, it's got to add another piece to it. And that's an ongoing process."

Radcliffe officials cite the school's programs for undergraduates and its participation in the development of Harvard policy as sufficient justification for its identity as Harvard's college for undergraduate women. It admits that more modifications will be necessary if Radcliffe's rebound is to succeed. But administrators also believe that undergraduates can be proud of their affiliation with the college now. As Horner puts it, "Some Radcliffe women say they're from Harvard because they don't feel equal saying 'Radcliffe.' That's like immigrants to the United States changing their names. If you have to change your identity, you don't feel equal. Women here must learn that 'Radcliffe' means Harvard in a real way."

Theoretically, Horner's argument makes sense: Radcliffe, unlike coeducational or single sex colleges, provides women with both a Harvard education and the added plus of the watchful and concerned eyes of the Board of Trustees--as well as their money. But as Charles William Eliot, president of Harvard from 1869 to 1909, said in his inaugural address, "Practical, not theoretical considerations determine the policy of the University." James B. Conant '14, president of Harvard from 1933 to 1953, reaffirmed that stance in 1952 when he said, "Harvard is not coeducational in theory, only in practice."

And today, while the Radcliffe Board of Trustees works to justify its theoretical role as a hidden helping hand for undergraduate women, its constituents are reiterating the positions of Eliot and Conant--in practice, Radcliffe women are taking courses from Harvard's faculty, eating meals in Harvard's dining halls, using Harvard's libraries, laboratories, and classrooms, and living in Harvard's dormitories.