Radcliffe Trust Plans Student Funding

With a council of 17 undergraduates and nine administrators and Faculty members in place, the first meeting of the committee to advise the Ann Radcliffe Trust will convene on Wednesday afternoon, charged with establishing a grant process for distributing the Trust's annual funds of nearly $20,000 to student groups.

Karen E. Avery '87, the associate dean of Harvard College, who heads the Trust, has proposed an ambitious agenda for tomorrow's 90 minute meeting and said she hopes to address the "grants process, eligibility issues for the grants, matters of co-sponsoring groups. . .the nuts and bolts of the Trust."

"The nitty-gritty details will come later," she said.

Avery said she is considering dividing the Trust committee into a smaller sub- group to tackle the grants process.

"There is a lot to accomplish, and I want to start focusing on grants," she said.

In their first few meetings, the committee will hammer out whether certain student groups should always have a slot on the committee and also will decide whether to have representatives from each House and class.

"I want to plant thoughts in this meeting, and get people thinking," she said. "What do we want?"

The Harvard Foundation for Intercultural and Race Relations , which distributes grants to student groups and plans programs to promote discussion of race relations on campus, offers a possible model for the structuring of future Trust advisory committees.

The Foundation reserves places on its student advisory committee for representatives from various ethnic student organizations.

Several members of the Trust committee currently serve in major leadership positions of organizations that will be soliciting the group for funds when a grant process is in place.

One such group is the Women's Leadership Project (WLP), which is sponsoring a Women's Guide to Harvard, a guidebook that is being written by students for female undergraduates. It is modeled after the Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard.

The guide aims to familiarize women undergraduates with the history of women at Harvard and Radcliffe, as well as the resources available to them on campus.

WLP Co-Chair Peggy T. Lim '01 is serving on the Trust committee, and had said last December she hoped the women's guide could secure a portion of its funding from the Trust.

Kamil E. Redmond '00, a key supporter of the women's guide, also serves on the Trust committee.

And Redmond said she too hopes the guide can secure funding from the Trust.

"The Trust needs to fund this guide," she said. "It's going to be different [sitting on the committee], I'll be watching the pot because I know I need funding for my group."

The Trust will not begin its open application process for grants until next fall.

But Redmond said that if she and Lim can talk personally with Avery now and secure the Trust's financial support, they can postpone paying the guide's publisher until next fall when the Trust begins issuing checks.

Avery said she does not yet know how much financial backing the Trust will provide the guide.

Yet, she confirmed that "the Trust is helping sponsor the women's guide."

Redmond said that she expects publishing costs to run anywhere between $15,000 and $20,000 and said she and other guide organizers are also working to secure advertisers to defray expenses.

According to Redmond, the Women's Guide and the Trust are a perfect match for each other.

"It's so important that the Trust have its name on this guide," Redmond said. "This is the first major [women's] publication coming out of the campus post-Radcliffe."

Redmond said she felt the Trust committee members all have women's--and the campus'--best interests at heart.

"Everyone on that list is really interested in building a women's community at Harvard," she said. "They are interested in the larger community, not just looking out for their own group."

Avery said it is up to the Trust committee to decide how to deal with committee members who will also be applying to the Trust for funds.

Avery said the committee will work over the course of the spring months to determine methods to safe-guard the grant process. She said students may be asked to excuse themselves from the committee when their own groups are asking for funds.

The full Trust committee will meet every four to six weeks during the spring months. The Trust effectively assumes the role that the Radcliffe Union of Students' (RUS) played in granting funds to student groups dealing with women's issues.

In the past, RUS doled out the funds collected from a $5 term bill fee charged to every female undergraduate. But with Radcliffe College now officially part of Harvard, RUS is left with no students to govern and no annual funds to distribute.

A complete list of Trust committee members has only recently become available. Avery was criticized by some students in December for choosing the committee members herself, rather than selecting members through an open application process.

But Avery stood her ground and has assembled a committee that will establish a grants process for Trust funds, as well as make decisions about how future members of the committee are chosen.

The Trust committee student members--15 women and two men--are: Aruna D. Balakrishnan '03, Angus R. Burgin '02, Nicole Carbellano '02, Elizabeth D. Chao '00, Kathryn B. Clancy '01, Svetla Gueorguieva '02, Irene B. Janis '03, Jessica A. Larson '00, Peggy T. Lim '00, Maryanthe E. Malliaris '01, Jotin Marango '01, Meredith B. Osborn '02, Mark D. Palmenter '00, Kamil E. Redmond '00, Sarah B. Stapleton '02, Shana M. Starobin '00 and Sinead B. Walsh '00.

Besides Avery, Faculty and administrators on the Trust Committee are: Laura Gordon Fisher, associate dean of the Faculty for academic planning, Julia G. Fox, special assistant to the Dean of Harvard College, Howard Georgi '68, Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics and Master of Leverett House, Lene Hau, Gordon McKay Professor of Applied Physics and Professor of Physics, Jacqueline Landry, Catholic Chaplain, United Ministry, Harry R. Lewis '68, dean of Harvard College and Gordon McKay Professor of Computer Science, Katharine Park '72, Zemurray and Stone Radcliffe Professor of the History of Science, and Lorraine Sterritt, associate dean of freshmen.