Columbia Scores Coup, Lands Radcliffe Course

The Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study announced yesterday that its famed publishing course--a summer program that teaches young professionals the ins-and-outs of the publishing world--will move to Columbia University this summer.

The move brings the world-famous Radcliffe Publishing Course to the campus of Columbia's Graduate School of Journalism and represents a major coup for Columbia, which has worked hard to lure the program away from Radcliffe.

Director of the Radcliffe Publishing course Lindy Hess said yesterday that "Columbia has been talking to me for some time" about the move.

Mary Maples Dunn, acting dean of the Institute, said Hess approached her "several weeks ago" to discuss leaving Radcliffe and taking the course with her.

"Columbia approached Lindy--they wanted to hire her away," Dunn said. "She talked it over with me."

The publishing course was undoubtedly one of Radcliffe's most famous and respected programs, so much so that The New York Times deemed it "the most celebrated summer program of its kind" last year.

"More and more, the industry is dependent on the course," Hess told The Crimson last year. "We know everybody in the industry."

Although Dunn and Hess acknowledged Columbia had lured the course away from Harvard, they also said the publishing course did not quite fit into Radcliffe's new mission as a research institution.

With its two-pronged mission statement, the Institute aims to be a place for all kinds of academic research and artistic achievement while retaining Radcliffe's traditional commitment to women, gender and society.

"The publishing course doesn't neatly fit into [Radcliffe's new] mission statement," Hess said.

Under an agreement with Radcliffe, Columbia will continue to use the Radcliffe name for two years and will call the program the Radcliffe Publishing Course at the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism.

Dunn said she is in discussions with Columbia about receiving compensation for the use of Radcliffe's name, but added that "the details aren't firm."

Hess will stay on at Radcliffe this year as a consultant about publishing matters to the Institute's fellows, and then plans to move to New York in the summer to head the publishing course.

Dunn said she would have liked to keep the course at Radcliffe, but said she feels it was the right choice "to send the program along with Lindy."

"In a lot of ways, I'm sorry to see it go," Dunn said. "Columbia is delighted to get the reputation of this course."

The decision to move the program will likely affect the Institute's plans to renovate the Cronkhite Graduate Center--a Radcliffe-owned building that now houses 150 students from other Harvard graduate schools. Radcliffe announced plans last spring to turn portions of the building into office space for its fellows.

Radcliffe had planned to build offices in Cronkhite for about 100 people associated with the course.