A New Radcliffe: Institute Era Begins

On a moonlit night in early October, under the branches of a small apple tree, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was born.

A few stalwarts gathered that night in Radcliffe Yard to raise glasses of champagne in salute to the Radcliffe that had been a College for 120 years and, to the sound of a tolling school bell, meet the Institute that is supposed to propel Radcliffe into the 21st century.

Radcliffe officially merged with Harvard on October 1, 1999 to become the Institute, a full-fledged school of Harvard University represented on the Deans' Council. Since then, a host of thorny questions about the Institute's future have been quietly resolved.

In October, major decisions were deferred to the first permanent dean of Radcliffe, who had yet to be appointed. By May, Penn historian Drew Gilpin Faust had gotten the nod for the dean's post and won over the hearts of Radcliffe staff and aficionados with an agenda of preserving Radcliffe's unique history while helping the Institute attract bright scholars.

And though the Institute will focus on academic research and must keep its hands off undergraduate affairs--as spelled out in the merger agreement--Faust says she envisions herself as an advocate for women's issues at Harvard.

"Quite simply, we are going to become a voice for women at Harvard," Faust says. "I'm going to be the only female at the deans' roundtable and there is a motive to be an agitator...I'm not so sure that's the mission those people who hired me wanted me to have...but it needs to be done."

Though Faust won't take the helm until January, she has been meeting with alumnae groups nationwide as she finishes up her speaking engagements for the University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently a professor of American history.

Mary Maples Dunn, acting dean of the Institute, has also met with alumnae over the past year, explaining the finer points of the merger and why Radcliffe would want to give up its status as a college anyway.

"This round of visits is really to talk to alums about the changes [in Radcliffe], to answer their questions..." Dunn said in January.

The merger with Harvard came while Radcliffe was in the midst of its own $100 million capital campaign. And though the effort is only a few million dollars short of its goal--a celebration party is scheduled for October--the number of donations made to Radcliffe's annual fund drive is lower than past years.

"The participation rate concerns me," Dunn said to a group of Harvard and Radcliffe alums in February.

Radcliffe College never had a faculty of it s own, but the merger left the Institute with a $350 million endowment and a fund from Harvard to match money donated to the Institute for fellowships and professorships.

The first endowed professorship came in January. It was a validation of sorts for the new Institute.

The $1.5 million donation, given by Terrence Murray '62, chief executive officer of FleetBoston Financial Corporation, in honor of his wife, was sizable enough to demonstrate that big money donors were willing to write a check to the fledging Institute. Several more big-ticket donations have come in since.

While Radcliffe has been collecting funds of its own, its also been writing checks, including a $50,000 one to the Ann Radcliffe Trust.

The Trust evolved from what was formerly the Harvard College Women's Initiative. It has assumed the responsibility of funding student groups with an interest in women and gender.

With about $20,000 to dole out in grant money each year, the Trust is set to assume the former task of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) to fund campus women's groups.

Under the auspices of Radcliffe College, RUS had collected $5 from every female undergraduate through a term bill fee and then used the funds to give grants to campus groups.

But the term bill fee was abolished along with Radcliffe College, and RUS has been forced to give up its funding role to the bigger and wealthier Trust.

The Trust meanwhile has spent the entire spring semester hammering out a procedure for grant giving and how future members of the student-Faculty committee will be selected.

A student-Faculty committee oversees the Trust. Karen E. Avery '87, assistant dean of Harvard College, serves as director of the group and Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68, sits on the student-Faculty committee.

The Trust is a sharp departure from the days when RUS's undergraduate leaders had sole discretion over the grant process.

RUS has not registered with Harvard College as a student group, and hence may forfeit a permanent slot on the Trust board. RUS has suffered from poor attendance at the group's meetings this year, though last year's president, Kathryn B. Clancy '01, has been elected to serve another year-long term.

Just as RUS no longer has undergraduates to govern, the Radcliffe College Alumnae Association (RCAA) has had to re-evaluate its mission now that women graduating from Harvard will no longer automatically become members of the organization.

The group is pondering a name change. It would become simply the Radcliffe Association, a move that requires a bylaw change, to be approved this week at RCAA's annual meeting.

And other Radcliffe traditions have had to transform in order to continue on at the post-merger Radcliffe.

Both men and women were invited to the Senior Soiree in Radcliffe Yard this spring, and for the first time, men attended the Strawberry Tea last week.

But what was traditionally the highlight of the Strawberry Tea--the awarding of the Jonathan Fay Prize--was conspicuously absent.

Dunn and Jeremy R. Knowles, dean of the Faculty, decided not to give the Fay Prize this year after its criteria and tradition of being awarded to only a woman raised eyebrows at Harvard College.

But Radcliffe did retain the right to give the Fay Prize, traditionally Radcliffe's highest honor for a graduating senior and will likely award the prize next year on the basis of academic merit--criteria in keeping with the Institute's intellectual mission.

Traditionally single-sex programs and prizes, like the Radcliffe Traveling Fellowships, have been handed over to Harvard College and opened up to both men and women.

With the last vestiges of undergraduate programming turned over to Harvard, Radcliffe has pointed its eyes inward and streamlined the application process for its own post-graduate fellows.

There is now a common application and single due date for all those looking to be a Radcliffe fellow, and the Institute is hoping to unite the formerly disparate programs of its "jewels," which include the Bunting Institute and the Schlesinger Library.

Fifty-six fellows will arrive at Radcliffe in the fall, the most ever in Radcliffe history, and the Institute is now working to create a central place for all the offices of all its future fellows.

Radcliffe tried to reassert its right to the Cronkhite Graduate Center--a large building that the Institute owns--but was met with a bevy of criticism from graduate students at other Harvard schools who live there now.

The students and Radcliffe administrators faced off in a March meeting at Cronkhite about Radcliffe's plans to turn dorm rooms into office space for its fellows. Radcliffe ultimately capitulated--at least for a year--and put off the renovations, while reserving 10 rooms in Cronkhite to use for office space this coming year if necessary.

Dunn sent a case of champagne to the graduate students' victory celebration.

But Radcliffe still plans to renovate Cronkhite for its own uses.

"I want our fellows to bump into each other. I want to mix up the units as much as possible. I like the plans for Cronkhite that muddle [all of the fellows]," Faust says.

The Faculty of Arts and Sciences will have to relocate its admissions office in 2006 when the agreement with Radcliffe to use Byerly Hall runs out.

Radcliffe hasn't decided what it wants to do with Byerly yet, but with an internal space evaluation currently underway, administrators are certain the Institute will need the building.

"The sooner Dean Knowles makes a move, the more I'll like it," Dunn said in March. "He's guaranteed a time in Byerly to help him discover a [different] space."

With the new Radcliffe well on its way, those closest to the merger mingled and munched on hors d'oeuvres in April at the portrait unveiling of the last president of Radcliffe College, Linda S. Wilson.

And only a few weeks later, Radcliffe's near and dear gathered again for the first in an Institute lecture series, featuring a lecture by Dean of Stanford Law School Kathleen Sullivan.

Sullivan compared the precisely worded Harvard and Radcliffe merger agreement--a product of almost two years of nitty-gritty negotiations between the two schools--to the Constitution of the United States.

"I can't think of a better example of a reflective equilibrium," Sullivan said. "I want to express every best wish for a successful future for the Institute."