From the Back of the Class...

Before there was coeducation at Harvard, Cambridge women would wander into Radcliffe classrooms and freely audit lectures given by Harvard professors. After 1946, when Radcliffe academically merged with Harvard, these wandering scholars were turned away from lectures for lack of space. For a time, even the Cliffies had to stand in the back of the lecture hall lest a Harvard man be deprived a seat.

In order to fill the educational gap created, Radcliffe in 1950 began offering a series of liberal arts courses called the Radcliffe Seminars to women in the Cambridge area. Some of the women were older, some had left college to raise families, but all of them lacked access to an educational experience at the level of Harvard academia. When, in 1963, the seminars became part of the Radcliffe Institute, it was tacitly decided that first preference to seats would be given to scholars other than Harvard and Radcliffe undergraduates.

The Institute maintained contact with undergraduates only through their Fellows, who would attend Radcliffe functions and occasionally offer freshman seminars. According to Alice K. Smith, dean, the Institute now feels "that a casual social contact with undergraduates is not sufficient."

This Fall, therefore, the Radcliffe Institute will offer to undergraduates a non--credit seminar called "Women in the Professions: Issues and Choices."

"We've already had a revolution in terms of women going to work; now the revolution involves the kinds of work women will do," said Hilda R. Kahne, assistant dean of the Institute and organizer of the seminar, explaining the seminar's proposed topic.

"Most women are still entering the traditional fields," she continued. "The course will question whether this indicates a structural channeling of women, whether women are specifically choosing the 'feminine' careers because this is where they feel comfortable, or whether parents discourage women from entering the professions."

The course will be research--oriented and will present data on the issues of women's development. Guest speakers will include persons currently involved in research or in unusual living experiences, and they will discuss topics determined by student interest.

"The course is not designed for consciousness--raising," Kahne said. "It will not be an encounter group, nor a cookbook course on life--styles. This is a time when institutions are in flux, and we hope to examine within a factual framework the present value system and the dynamics of those decisions which women pursuing the professions reach."

The seminar will meet for one and a half hours once a week for ten weeks at the Radcliffe Institute. Enrollment will be limited and determined by written application and, if necessary, an interview before September 28. Kahne hopes that the seminar will attract Harvard men as well as women.

"Men have to live with women, and, besides, many men will face the same issues which women have always faced: they will want to pursue a number of goals rather than limit themselves to financial success, or will want to change their careers in mid--life, or want work to be humanized," Kahne said.

The seminar arrives at a time when more Radcliffe women are entering the professional fields. The national proportion of women workers having five years of college or more--3 per cent in 1969 according to the Monthly Labor Review--is still, however, little more than half the proportion of men.

Of the 268 members of the Radcliffe class of 1970, 39 per cent of the graduates continued on to a graduate school of arts and sciences. This figure is 3 per cent higher than the national percentage of M.A.s earned by women, as estimated by the U.S. Department of Labor.

Of the same class, 21 graduates, 82 per cent, continued on to law school, while 14, or 6 per cent, went to medical school. The national figures are 3 per cent and 7 per cent respectively, according to the Monthly Labor Review.

It is the philosophy of the Radcliffe Institute to combine a career with marriage. "Hopefully," says Kahne, "the combination will be happy, Hopefully, the seminar will provide a base of knowledge and experience for making life judgments about major professional choices and life-styles."