Radcliffe Reunions Remain Separate

Every year members of the Harvard 25th and Radcliffe 25th reunion classes are asked to donate any books they have written to two separate special exhibitions. The Harvard books are placed on display in Widener Library while the books written by Radcliffe class members are shown in Radcliffe's Fay House.

Last year, a few women from the Radcliffe class of '58 asked if they could merge their exhibit with the Harvard's offerings but were told by Harvard officials that there was not enough space in Widener for their work. Some Radcliffe returnees, however, saw the snub as a deliberate attempt to keep the Harvard and Radcliffe reunions distinct.

But according to many women from the class of '58 the one element that keeps the gathering different is money. While their Harvard counterparts have already donated more than $6.4 million in gifts and pledges to the Harvard Campaign so far this year, representatives from the corresponding Radcliffe class say they will be lucky if $60,000 is raised by the end of 1983. The extent of events during the week are obviously, the women say, tied to the figures.

The differences between the two reunions are immediately apparent in the different reunion books compiled by the colleges. The Harvard book is hard-bound with pictures and typeset autobiographies of all class members. The Radcliffe version is soft-bound with xeroxed copies of forms members of the class sent in about their lives. Some are typed and others are hand-written.

The technique of payment for the events is another noticeable difference between the two functions. While the Harvard men pay a flat fee of $499 for all the events to which they can bring their entire families, the Radcliffe women must pay for their families and events on an individual basis bringing the total cost for a couple attending all the events to $240.50. And while tens of counselors take care of the Harvard offspring in a mini-summer camp, the Radcliffe alumnae children must fend for themselves.

The Harvard 25th runs from the Sunday before Commencement to the date of the graduation exercises but the Radcliffe 25th begins on the Tuesday preceding Commencement and runs through the following Saturday. The overlap allows the women to join the Harvard 25th for their one joint event--a day away at an exclusive country club. The men and women must pay a $46 per person fee for "Essex Day" which was begun a few years ago to enable Radcliffe women join in on some of the Harvard festivities.

And while Harvard might roll out the red carpet to wine and dine the returning members of its Class of '58 and their families. Radcliffe's approach for hosting its returning alumnae in which more low-key. Radcliffe has arranged its events so that members of all the returning classes can meet together for discussions and luncheons, whereas each Harvard class arranges its own elaborate events.

Ann Brace Barnes '58 remembers that when she attended her husband's 25th Harvard reunion in 1966, the men came back to "brag and boast" and the activities were arranged like "one big cocktail party." This week when Barnes and her husband return for her 25th, she and most of the other women will have come back to "see each other and to talk about serious questions."

Introspection seems the prevailing theme for the Radcliffe 25th, in sharp contrast to the raucousness and drunkeness that the women associate with their Harvard counterparts' reunion. The Radcliffe 25th is "a watershed which people tend to use as an opportunity to access their lives up until a point and to get support from other people," says Roberta Milender Goldwyn '58, one of the 25th reunion co-chairmen.

While many women might feel they are second class citizens. Goldwyn feels the Radcliffe 25th provides a different but just as beneficial experience where "we can establish a feeling of closeness with our classmates." Goldwyn attended her husband's 25th reunion last year at Harvard, and says she does not feel jealous in the discrepancies between the two reunions. While 588 members from the Harvard class of '58 have returned, only 82 members from the 241 mem- bers of the Radcliffe class of '58 have come back.

However, that discrepancy between the two events should all but disappear in 1988, when the Harvard and Radcliffe classes of 1963 will have the first joints 25th reunion. But until then most returning Radcliffe alumnae are not bitter about the discrepancies in reunions.

As one woman says, "From 1954-1958 we went to Radcliffe and not to Harvard. We might have had a social life with Harvard men but we lived in the Radcliffe dorms and they lived in the Harvard dorms