Breaking Up, Making Money

Everyone's doing it. Everyone's talking about it. But everyone wants to do it alone.

Fundraising, a hot issue this year, has long been practiced at Harvard in the tradition of "every tub on its own bottom," where each faculty is responsible for seeking its own donations.

And the spirit of individualism has recently affected the historic "non-merger merger" agreement between Harvard and Radcliffe, which joined the schools' admissions offices and gave Harvard responsibility for the education and daily life of women undergraduates.

Under the terms of the 1977 document, the two schools had a joint fund for soliciting donations from post-1976 graduates. But, in July, Harvard President Derek C. Bok and former Radcliffe President Matina S. Horner announced that they will now fundraise separately. Their rationale: Two separate funds will help boost donations from recent graduates.

According to Nancy Couch--the former Harvard director of the joint fund--each school will now approach both men and women graduates for donations. The policy change was announced in a letter to 22,000 alumni sent out this summer.

The dissolution of the joint fund constitutes a "major restructuring" for Radcliffe fundraising, the school's newly appointed president, Linda S. Wilson, said last week.

Calling the decision a "significant change," Wilson said both Radcliffe and Harvard will benefit from fewer constraints on fundraising and the ability to seek large endowment gifts, while alumni will also gain increased flexibility in their donations.