Undergraduates Will Address Alumni On Experiences of Women at Harvard

The Association of Harvard Alumni (AHA) will begin a three-day directors meeting Thursday to discuss with undergraduates the role of Radcliffe women in the University.

Entitled "The Harvard Experience for Women," the meeting will consist of panel discussions, speeches and informal gatherings between undergraduate men and women, administrators, professors and the alumni association.

Barbara Voss, vice president of AHA, said yesterday the meeting will attempt to inform alumni of the "best educational solutions open to men and women in the college." Merger will not be the main topic of discussion, though it will come up in specific contexts, Voss said.

"This is not a meeting about merger. Merger is a financial and administrative arrangement," Voss said. "We will be discussing educational solutions. If you can decide educational needs, then you can decide financial and administrative needs," she said.

Mitchell Wolfe '74, a student coordinator for the proceedings, said yesterday that undergraduate discussions will focus on the future of Harvard. He said that as diverse an opinion as possible would be presented and that he hoped alumni "would become aware of the problems and benefits" of coeducation.

Four seniors will give a panel discussion Friday afternoon, presenting personal views of the Harvard-Radcliffe relationship. Jeffrey Sagansky '74, a member of the panel, said yesterday he will take the position that Harvard is not ready to make substantial alterations in the number of men it admits.

Sagansky said that Harvard cannot systematically increase the size of the University by admitting more women because that would require the addition of two or three new houses. "I don't think that is a legitimate demand we can make on the Cambridge community in terms of the land it would use," he said.

"On the other hand, cutting back the number of men to 800 and increasing the number of women would have, I think, disastrous consequences for Harvard as a unique institution," Sagansky said.

Sagansky says that a decrease in the number of Harvard men would undercut alumni financing and have an adverse effect on Harvard athletics.

"Fifty per cent of Harvard's yearly endowment comes from families with a long tradition at Harvard," he said. Sagansky said this percentage would shrink if family traditions were broken as a result of a decrease in the number of male admissions.