Women's Groups to Protest Forum Cuts

Women's groups will protest the proposed elimination of the Radcliffe Forum at a rally in Radcliffe Yard this Thursday, while the Radcliffe Trustees consider a budget recommendation to cut the Forum's entire staff.

The proposed cutback has prompted administrators to question Radcliffe's support of "non-traditional" women's education.

A. Simone Reager, director of the Forum, said yesterday she is "personally gratified and pleased by the response" of women in the Harvard community and at large, to the proposed Forum shutdown.

For Openers

Women "should let the appropriate people know that services for women are important so that something can be done to maintain the basis of support for women at this institution," she added.

Burton I. Wolfman, administrative dean of Radcliffe said last week all current programs of the Radcliffe Forum would continue in spite of the staff cut.

However, Wolfman added, "We (Radcliffe) cannot spend our endowment money on community outreach."

Reagor said she believes Radcliffe has abandoned its original philosophy of trying to create Forum programs that reach out to a broader constituency.

"In order to justify the existence of a separate educational institution for women's its mission must be to bridge the gap between formal education and the issues that grow out of our lives as women in the real world," Reagor said.

Current programs that reach women in the community include the Forum's support of the Advanced Women's Scholars, Friday at the Forum, and the Gilman speaker series.

President Horner said last week that an assistant dean with the help of other college staff would replace the Forum staff which the budget cuts eliminate. She added that she envisioned no change in the Forum programs as a result of the staff cuts.

"It is not possible to preserve the Forum in its present form and still keep the programs," Horner said yesterday, adding, "Dr. Reagor had suggested that the Forum was perhaps not the most viable structure for providing programs."

Reagor said she had suggested in 1978 that the College needed a reorganization, adding, "I would not away with the Forum but enlarge it now that it has proven to be such a success."

Reagor said a crucial element in the Forum's success is the "centeredness and psychologial support; which the Forum in its present form provides