Women: Welcome to Harvard

After 363 years, women have at last arrived at Harvard.

Praising the Harvard-Radcliffe merger announced in April, many undergraduate women have for years said they identify more closely with Harvard, where they have lived and attended classes. Even so, undergraduates will be affected by the new arrangement, though just how remains unclear.

The deal, which will be finalized this week, will fully merge Radcliffe College and Harvard. Effective October 1, Radcliffe College will sever its ties with female undergraduates and be reborn as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study under the University's umbrella.

While many have applauded a deal that has at last made women full partners with men at Harvard, others have wondered if Harvard can respond to undergraduate women's special needs now that Radcliffe has abdicated all responsibility.

"We've found [the Harvard administration] extremely unresponsive," said Rosslyn Wuchinich '99 last spring. "They don't really understand the experience of women at this school."

Compounding the problem for some is Harvard's long-time insistence that all University-sponsored programming be open to all undergraduates. That means no center or space devoted solely to women, like Radcliffe's Lyman Common Room, and no women's student government open to only women voters, like the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS).

The final deal about to be signed is silent on many of the issues that most closely affect undergraduates. There is no assurance that RUS will continue, as many students and alumnae had hoped, and administrators and lawyers will continue to debate the future of many of Radcliffe's prizes and fellowships in the coming months.

Harvard officials say they just need time to prove they have women's interests at heart. After all, they claim, under the old arrangement they had become accustomed to thinking of women's issues as Radcliffe's sphere.

"It's very hard to fulfill a mission if you haven't fully been given it," Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine said last spring.

But Harvard officials say its recent efforts, including the 12th annual Women's Leadership Project and the Harvard College Women's Initiative, show an increased awareness of and response to female undergraduates.

"Taking on such a responsibility and executing it is a process, not an event," said then Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson in May. "I am very convinced that in their hearts they want to do this."

--Rosalind S. Helderman