Practicing Public Interest P.R.

Marcia Kline Sharp '68 says one of her most fulfilling projects in the last few years was building a doll house for her seven-year-old daughter.

Sharp says that although she does not share her daughter's preference for dolls over power tools, she enjoyed putting her skills to work for someone else.

Home isn't the only place where Sharp has used her talents to further the interests of others.

For 20 years Sharp chaired the Washington, D.C., public relations firm Hager-Sharp, which she co-founded. And last February, Sharp left her company to start another, the Millennium Communications Group.

Sharp also has a long list of volunteer activities, most of which employ the same type of skills as her professional work.

She says her work consists of helping companies to find direction and grow--not just packaging them to look appealing.

"I think of what I do as communications consulting, not public relations. What we're really trying to do is use communications to make an important change for the organization to help it grow," Sharp says.

Sharp says she decided to go into this line of work because she enjoys all of its aspects. "I like moving forward. I like growing things. I like building things. I like problem solving. I like finding what is important and current," she says.

Her client list consists mainly of organizations which provide social services, including the American Society for Training and Development, B'nai B'rith Women and the Women's College Coalition.

Sharp says that while she prefers to work for nonprofit firms, she does not choose them based on any narrow agenda. She says only. "I want every company I work for to build for responsible action."

But Sharp says that while she is "not socially terribly radical," her personal time is devoted to organizations with agendas similar to her own. "I have ideas about how the world ought to be," she says.

Judging from the organizations she has worked for, education and women's issues are high on her list.

In the 1970s, Sharp was a founding member of the National Association of Women Business Owners. The association, she says, is dedicated to fighting the challenges that women face in business, such as credit discrimination, and it also explored the effect of women on the workplace environment.

She says she enjoyed this work because she enjoys making companies grow. "I was most involved in the start-up of the organization," Sharp says.

In working for the Council for Women in Independent Schools, Sharp united her concern for education and women's issues. This organization tackled the issue of making independent schools "more responsive to the fact that these schools have to work for girls as well as they do for boys," Sharp says.

Her concern for women comes from personal experience. Sharp, who is married and has three children, says she struggles to balance her work with her family and personal time.

"I think that we all struggle with it all the time. The decision to have a career and to have a family isn't a decision you make once. The tradeoffs come to you every week and every day," Sharp says.

Although both women and men must face these choices, Sharp feels that making these compromises "is harder for women because you feel the guilt more."

"I think you can balance, but what happens is that you can do your career, and you can do your family, but it's pretty tough to do yourself. You give up some time for reflective self-development," Sharp says.

But it seems that Sharp never spent much time in reverie. A summa cum laude graduate and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, she says that in college she definitely did more studying than reflecting.

Sharp says that although she wrote for The Crimson during her sophomore and junior years, most of her senior year was devoted to writing her History and Literature senior thesis, Beyond the Land Itself: Views of Nature in Canada and the United States, which was published by Harvard University Press in 1970.

People close to Sharp remember her as an academic. Her sister, Penelope Kline Bardel '62, says she expected Sharp to be a professor. "I though she was very gifted academically and temperamentally suited in that direction," she said.

But Sharp says her friends should not be surprised by her career in public relations. Although she says she never had her professional life precisely planned out she always knew that she would choose a more, "outer directed" career.

"I'm a very concrete and practical person, and I really don't like to just make ideas run around the pages of a book," Sharp says.

She says she thinks some other things are more worthwhile than studying. "There are a whole lot of other things that are important to building the kinds of relationships which I think are important than sort of an intellectual tour de force," Sharp says.

But Sharp says that she didn't feel motivated to pursue other activities at Harvard. The prevailing attitude here, she says, was that there were excellent resources but students had to go out and find them on their own.

"Harvard was not a very school-spirited sort of place. So the only thing that I could do would be to be a student, because I couldn't get my hand around the institution," Sharp says.

Now that Sharp is out of school, much of her self analysis takes place at an island in Casco Bay, Maine, where she has spent her vacations since childhood and where her family still gathers, according to her sister. Their time on this island allows them to explore "soul searching issues," Bardel says.

Sharp values this island as an antidote to many of the other stresses in her life.

"It's a place that is immune or unaffected by all the kinds of pressures and schedules, power moves and career ambition and the right schools and all that kind of stuff that we're too involved with all the time," Sharp says

She says she enjoyed this work because she enjoys making companies grow. "I was most involved in the start-up of the organization," Sharp says.

In working for the Council for Women in Independent Schools, Sharp united her concern for education and women's issues. This organization tackled the issue of making independent schools "more responsive to the fact that these schools have to work for girls as well as they do for boys," Sharp says.

Her concern for women comes from personal experience. Sharp, who is married and has three children, says she struggles to balance her work with her family and personal time.

"I think that we all struggle with it all the time. The decision to have a career and to have a family isn't a decision you make once. The tradeoffs come to you every week and every day," Sharp says.

Although both women and men must face these choices, Sharp feels that making these compromises "is harder for women because you feel the guilt more."

"I think you can balance, but what happens is that you can do your career, and you can do your family, but it's pretty tough to do yourself. You give up some time for reflective self-development," Sharp says.

But it seems that Sharp never spent much time in reverie. A summa cum laude graduate and a member of Phi Beta Kappa, she says that in college she definitely did more studying than reflecting.

Sharp says that although she wrote for The Crimson during her sophomore and junior years, most of her senior year was devoted to writing her History and Literature senior thesis, Beyond the Land Itself: Views of Nature in Canada and the United States, which was published by Harvard University Press in 1970.

People close to Sharp remember her as an academic. Her sister, Penelope Kline Bardel '62, says she expected Sharp to be a professor. "I though she was very gifted academically and temperamentally suited in that direction," she said.

But Sharp says her friends should not be surprised by her career in public relations. Although she says she never had her professional life precisely planned out she always knew that she would choose a more, "outer directed" career.

"I'm a very concrete and practical person, and I really don't like to just make ideas run around the pages of a book," Sharp says.

She says she thinks some other things are more worthwhile than studying. "There are a whole lot of other things that are important to building the kinds of relationships which I think are important than sort of an intellectual tour de force," Sharp says.

But Sharp says that she didn't feel motivated to pursue other activities at Harvard. The prevailing attitude here, she says, was that there were excellent resources but students had to go out and find them on their own.

"Harvard was not a very school-spirited sort of place. So the only thing that I could do would be to be a student, because I couldn't get my hand around the institution," Sharp says.

Now that Sharp is out of school, much of her self analysis takes place at an island in Casco Bay, Maine, where she has spent her vacations since childhood and where her family still gathers, according to her sister. Their time on this island allows them to explore "soul searching issues," Bardel says.

Sharp values this island as an antidote to many of the other stresses in her life.

"It's a place that is immune or unaffected by all the kinds of pressures and schedules, power moves and career ambition and the right schools and all that kind of stuff that we're too involved with all the time," Sharp says