Radcliffe's Founding Dean

Last Tuesday the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study welcomed Drew Gilpin Faust, its first permanent dean. The Institute has much to celebrate in her appointment. Faust has stellar academic credentials; she is Annenberg Professor of History at the University of Pennsylvania and has been director of their Women's Studies program since 1996. In that capacity, she has shown a strong commitment to women and gender issues. It goes without saying that Radcliffe faces complicated challenges ahead, not the least of which will be its relationship with the University and its not-yet clearly delineated mission.

Currently, the Institute is governed by two distinct mission statements. It will foster all kinds of academic research and artistic achievement, but must maintain a specific commitment to the study of women and gender. We urge the Institute to prioritize the latter. Although Faust has noted that these two missions do not necessarily need to be separated within the Institute, they will come into tension with each other when it comes to selecting research topics and allocating capital and space resources.

The relationship between the Institute and undergraduates is another challenge that Faust will face. Although Radcliffe has severed most of its official ties to students, Faust has suggested that room for informal interaction still exists in the form of seminars, conferences and mentorships for example. This is a sound approach. Our only hope is that this type of informal interaction is not simply viewed as some secondary side-effect, but incorporated into the Institute's primary mission of advancing study in women and gender issues.

Faust's appointment was very important and much anticipated. Without a dean to clearly articulate the Institute's future plans, administrators have been understandably hesitant to make final decisions. Although Faust will not take over her new duties until January, she should help administrators make timely choices to help the Institute take its first definitive steps toward becoming a prestigious research center. These steps, we hope, will include placing women and gender issues as the Institute's top academic priority and retaining strong ties to undergraduates.