Dean Arthurs Finds But Plans Not to Forget Radcliffe A Harvard Home

Alberta Arthurs has only herself to blame for the fact that she is leaving her post as dean of the now-extinct Radcliffe Office of Admissions, Financial Aid and Women's Education to assume the deanship of Harvard's new Office of Undergraduate Affairs. After all, Arthurs has been hard at work for the last two years preparing the scenario for her own exit. Voicing her views "very noisily" on the Strauch Committee, Arthurs pushed for an admissions policy that would make her own Byerly Hall bailiwick superfluous. Now, with equal access and merged admissions offices a reality, she is sadly saying goodbye to what she calls "an independent, autonomous, happy office."

"It was a good operation," Arthurs says. "I think we got a lot accomplished and a lot of what we accomplished led inevitably to the end of the job.... We all enjoyed it very much, so there's an inevitable feeling of sadness, reluctance, nostalgia at seeing it go."

Leaving her post involves for Arthurs the acceptance of these inevitabilities, an acceptance made more comfortable by her confidence in equal access. "I think we'll have more women in the immediate future, a lot more women in the next few years, and I don't think 60:40 will be difficult to achieve," she says. "Of course it all depends on the economy, the clarity of our presentation of Harvard-Radcliffe to the outside world, and what the women's colleges do. But if there is any college that can achieve 50:50, Harvard can do it." Arthurs has been consistent in her opposition to the arbitrary imposition of a 1:1 male/female admissions quota. ("I don't think it would be realistic or even necessarily fair," she says.) But still she is not totally immune to doubts shared by those who claim that equal access--Harvard style--is not all it is cracked up to be, that sexist attitudes will continue to pervade the admissions process. "Sometimes I wonder," she says, "Am I kidding myself, are there really scoundrels around who're going to undermine the whole thing?'"

Such doubts must not be very unusual for Alberta Arthurs, working as she does in an administrative hierarchy that is almost exclusively male. The optimism she often expresses about her own ability to change things at Harvard is based from the start on her ungrudging recognition that things here could certainly do with a little changing. "This institution suffers from a basic failure to believe top jobs can be filled by women," she says, as she prepares to take on her second top administrative post in three years here. "I think Harvard has a long way to go in terms of taking women very, very seriously. That's true of Harvard and it's true of the world." But then her optimism comes through. "The people here are very educable and very cooperative. At their very, very best they don't suffer from sexism, and I think they can be encouraged not to suffer from sexism."

In the meantime, despite her collaboration in eliminating the separate Radcliffe admissions office--according to some, one of Radcliffe's last claims to importance--Arthurs is unwilling to see Radcliffe disappear entirely. Until women become a more normal part of the University's institutional structure, she says, "having an advocacy group of women remains an important task in itself." Calling herself "an addict of Radcliffe alums," she maintains also that Radcliffe has a serious responsibility to its alumnae, a responsibility it now meets through its Alumnae Office, Fund Office and alumnae magazine--what she calls "an enormous network which can't be ignored or dismissed." It's a responsibility, Arthurs recognizes, that involves as many sentimental as practical considerations. "These women haven't gone through the Harvard you and I know," she says simply. She also points to the efforts of organizations like the Radcliffe Institute and Schlesinger Library to serve the broader community of women, efforts she'd like to see intensified rather than phased out.

"I can conceive of a future Radcliffe quite different from the current one," she says. "I do think Radcliffe's direct responsibility for undergraduate women is different from the past, even different this year from last year. But that's only one part of what Radcliffe has to do. There are problems women face in the University and in society as a whole. I think carelessly dissolving a Radcliffe base for them would be a terrible mistake.

But no matter what her concern about Radcliffe, its future is no longer within Arthurs' official purview. As part of the Harvard administration, she will now focus her efforts on improving advising and counseling of undergraduates and related student services. It hasn't been too difficult a transition to make, Arthurs says. "I see my new job, in one dimension, as an extension of what I've already been doing--working to improve the quality of undergraduate education." Because she'll encounter many of the same people in the course of her official duties, her working life, she says, "won't change much. There'll be a shift in my day-to-day administrative concerns, but the people I like and enjoy working under already."

According to Arthurs, creation of the Office of Undergraduate Affairs was discussed in University Hall prior to the publication of the Strauch Report, but, she says, "I'm not at all sure the deanship would have materialized so quickly if changes hadn't been taking place in other parts of the University." While she admits she's been sensitive to the possibility that some feelings in University Hall may have been hurt by the news of her appointment, she says so far "people have been quite cordial" and she anticipates no great difficulties in working with anyone in the administration.

Arthurs's first priority in her new post will be "to learn as much as I possibly can about the system as it now exists." She denigrates her present views on the advising system as "impressionistic," and her self-confessed ignorance makes her reluctant to comment further. She does say, however, that she finds the effort that goes into advising freshmen "laudable," even if it doesn't always work. "I think the entrance into sophomore year is much more dangerous and perilous, for some students," she adds. "I'd like to think a lot about that."

Other projects Arthurs will consider include closer coordination of the departmental and House advising networks, expansion of the freshman orientation program for minority students and the development of pre-law and pre-business advising programs modeled after the current system of pre-medical advising. In addition, she plans to explore the possibility of reviving previously successful publications, like the now-defunct "Perspectives on Concentrations."

In her new role, Arthurs visualizes herself as a sort of "liaison between the departments and University Hall," who'll be working with groups ranging from the Office of Career Services and the Bureau of Study Counsel--never before linked to the University administration--to Room 13 and the Committee on Undergraduate Education. She will also sit for the first time on the Committee on Houses and Undergraduate Life, where she will wrestle with the current housing crisis precipitated by the increasing unpopularity of the Quadrangle. "I think it would be nice to make a decision," she says, without committing herself to one. "There are some problems at the Quad, but it's hardly a place of despondency and total despair. I think too that some of the virtues of the River Houses are exaggerated. After all, their paint peels too."

All these new responsibilities do not mean that Arthurs will have to abandon completely her concerns of the past two years. "I'll still play a role in admissions," she says, "but it won't be a central or pivotal role. I'll read some folders, sit in on committee meetings." Arthurs will remain a member of the Faculty's standing committee on admissions and financial aid and will probably chair a sub-committee that will review the results of the first year of equal access. It is a task she is looking forward to.

Outside of her administrative functions, Arthurs hopes "in some minimal way to keep hold of my field," which is English. Presently, she teaches a freshman seminar on marriage and courtship in English literature. "I do believe," she says, "that the only genuinely important work of a university goes on in classrooms, and comes out in books and laboratories. I hope never to be so trapped in bureaucracies that I forget that."

In the meantime, Alberta Arthurs is still working hard to make at least part of her job unnecessary. "I look forward to a time when it's possible for women in educational administration to be administrators first and advocates second, if at all," she says, her picture of the present again lightened by her vision of the future. "One of my professional aims is to make that happen. Meanwhile, though, I'm not going to stop being an advocate; advocating for women is too much fun. And I like to be right in the thick of things all the time."