Students Debate Equalizing Diplomas

One Undergraduate Council debate this spring proved that Radcliffe College still means a lot to those undergraduates who make the trek up Garden Street to seek mentorship and courses as well as considerable academic and personal resources.

A bill to make men's and women's diplomas identical appeared on the council's docket, drawing over two dozen Harvard women to the council's Feb. 22 general meeting to defend their ancestral institution.

Harvard men and women currently receive different signatures on their diplomas based on the historic separation of Radcliffe and Harvard Colleges. Men's diplomas have the signature of the University President, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of Harvard College and their House Masters.

The President of Radcliffe College, rather than the Dean of Harvard College, signs women's diplomas.

Council meetings are always open to the student body, but are rarely attended by non-members. The guests at the diploma debate said they perceived the Act for Uniform Undergraduate Diplomas as an attack on Radcliffe.

Not so, said Rachel E. Barber '99, one of the bill's primary sponsors. Barber said she merely wanted to further augment the status of women at the College.

"In 1963 Radcliffe College ceased to confer its own degrees. The diplomas are [the same] as they have been since 1977, if not before then," Barber said.

But Anna M. Baldwin '00, Emma C. Cheuse '98 and Ann E. Schneider '99-'00 said they did not agree that all undergraduate diplomas should be the same.

"I don't feel that I'm getting the same education as men. But the education doesn't have to be the same to be equal," Schneider said at the meeting.

"Our diplomas should recognize the existence of Radcliffe," she added.

When she saw the meeting agenda Cheuse circulated an e-mail message to hundreds of women, both through her personal contacts and organizations such as the Radcliffe Union of Students and the Women's Leadership Project [WLP]. The message called on women to stand up in support of Radcliffe.

A vigorous debate also arose on the council's newsgroup. Students who contributed to the debate said they worried that the bill pointed out Radcliffe's particular vulnerability.

"I came to Harvard to come to Radcliffe, too," said Elizabeth A. Haynes '98 a former council member and a guest at the meeting. "My opportunities as a woman would have been very different had Radcliffe not existed."

In order to the institution, opponents of the bill proposed an amendment that would merely add the signature of the Dean of Harvard College to women's diplomas. Thus the diplomas would continue to recognize Radcliffe's legacy while elevating the presence of Harvard College on the diplomas.

When the amendment passed, the bill's original sponsors resigned their sponsorship in protest.

"I think that because it advocates one particular change it has less of a chance of opening up a dialogue about what this issue is really about," Barber said. "That is the relationship of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and the relationship of those institutions to Harvard University."

Altering the diplomas would require a renegotiation of the entire 1976 agreement between Harvard and Radcliffe which stipulates that "the diplomas of female candidates will be signed in accordance with present practices."

The amended bill passed, under the sponsorship of Baldwin, Cheuse and Schneider.

A month later Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 declined to sign the bill, which, had it gotten Lewis' support would have been considered next by the Committee on Undergraduate Education.

"I can't see any good reason, given the sharp division of opinion on this question, to go through the many layers of approvals needed to make this change, simply to effect the modest alteration of adding a signature to women's diplomas," Lewis wrote in an e-mail message to council President Beth A. Stewart '00.

Lewis also said that since the council passed the bill by only a slim margin, he did not feel he had a mandate to advocate for the change.

"I really think that at this point it is not likely that anything will come of this bill," Stewart said in March.

While the bill itself came to naught, the debate it sparked continues in the council.

The council has since seen an increase in its female membership, formerly about 30 percent, as a direct result of the diploma debate. Colleen T. Gaard '99, chair of the WLP, joined the council in March because she was "appalled" by members' lack of concern for issues impacting women.

At the first meeting she attended Gaard announced the creation of a women's caucus to both recruit women for vacant council spots and inform those busy with other activities about the resources and opportunities the council can offer.

"It's important to have women's perspectives," Gaard said. "There are no issues that are just women's issues, but there are issues that women are more invested in than men."