Radcliffe Group Seeks Successor for Bunting

An eight person Search Committee appointed last spring by the Radcliffe Council has been meeting every two weeks over the summer to choose a successor to retiring Radcliffe President Mary I. Bunting.

The President--designate will assume Bunting's duties this June. The new president will also become Dean of Radcliffe in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences under the new non--merger plan.

At present, the Search Committee is beginning to investigate and evaluate the several hundred candidates suggested for the post as requested by a letter sent out by the Search Committee in July.

The letter, written by Helen H. Gilbert '36, chairman of the Radcliffe Board of Trustees and the Search Committee, went to Radcliffe undergraduates, past and present Radcliffe administrators and employees, all Radcliffe alumnae, the present Harvard governing boards, past and present Radcliffe governing boards, officers of the Associated Harvard Alumni, and University faculty members.

Interviewed after last week's Search Committee meeting, Gilbert said, "We have a good list of candidates to work with already, several hundred names coming from the letters as well as suggestions from other individuals and institutions. Of course, names are still coming in and we hope to get more suggestions once the academic year begins."

Screening of potential candidates will not begin in earnest until the committee starts meeting once a week in October.

According to Gilbert, the committee will work closely with Presidents Bunting and Bok throughout the selection process. Another advisor to the committee will be Francis H. Burr '35, Senior Fellow of Harvard College and Radcliffe Trustee, who played a key role in the selection of President Bok last year.

Gilbert said that a number of the present candidates are women who are already connected to the University but that the group as a whole reflects a diversity of academic backgrounds.

So far only a small portion of the candidates received undergraduate degrees from Radcliffe, although many of them attained graduate degrees from Harvard schools.

Criteria laid down by the committee to aid them in their selection stress a strong academic background, a talent for administration and the ability to work with undergraduate students. As the letter states. "This will be a new Radcliffe which demands qualities of leadership, style, personality and judgment."

One of the members of the Search Committee is Candy Lee '72. Lee was chosen by the other members of the committee from a number of students recommended for the post by the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS).

"I filled out a form circulated by RUS last spring stating why I wanted to be on the committee and about three weeks later they contacted me for an interview," Lee said. "I liked the other members right away and I guess they liked me." Lee's previous experience included a year and a half of work for the League of Women Voters.

"We haven't really developed any specific procedures for screening the candidates yet or making the actual selection. We're just working things out as we go along," Lee said.

Other Search Committee members are Beth I. Best '47, president of the Alumni Association, Mary L. Bundy '46, chairman of the Board of Trustees; Frances Cooper-Marshal Donovan '28, second vice chairman; Anne M. Morgan '46, first vice president of the Alumni Association; Francis Keppel '38, Overseer of Harvard and former dean of the Faculty of Education; and Zeph Stewart, Master of Lowell House.