With Merger Sealed, Task Turns to Dean Search

It's a task that demands a miracle worker. The first permanent dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study will attempt to take a $350-million endowment and transform it into a world-renowned center for learning at an institution with no students, no permanent teachers and no specific focus.

When the Dean's Selection Committee convenes for the first time this Sunday, the group will be looking for a rare visionary who can build the Institute into an academic center fit to sit alongside Harvard's nine faculties.

And it's a tall order to fill.

"This is a particularly challenging search," one administrator says. "In some ways, [the deanship is] very attractive. But in some ways, it's an unknown."

First, the dean must be a woman. This, Acting Dean of the Institute Mary Maples Dunn insisted last spring, is "essential."

In addition, her academic credentials must be sufficiently stellar to make her tenure-quality at Harvard. Usually that requires a professor to be at the pinnacle of her field.

Sources say if the committee chooses a dean without a solid scholarly background, they risk marginalizing the new Institute before it has a chance to establish itself.

Harvard hasn't found many such women--currently only 13 percent of tenured professors in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences are female.

Narrowing the field further, she must be more than a scholar, but also a proven administrator. Radcliffe is a tangle of research centers, graduate programs like the Radcliffe Publishing Course and seminars for the general public. And that's before the Institute even creates programs of its own.

Finally, alumnae and potential donors are likely to insist that the new dean be firmly committed to women's and gender studies, or as former Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson liked to put it, "advancing society by advancing women."

Few candidates are likely to clear such a high bar.

The gold standard might well be political philosopher Nannerl O. Keohane. The editor of Feminist Theory: A Critique of Ideology (1982), she's published widely about feminism and has administrative experience to boot--she's the president of Duke University.

But of course, Keohane already has a job. With an endowment of $1.4 billion as of last June, Duke has four times the resources of the new Institute. What's more, Keohane is only a year into a five-year, $1.5 billion capital campaign.

Another logical place to look would be the Seven Sisters, a group of once all-female colleges in the Northeast, including Radcliffe.

Wellesley College President Diana Chapman Walsh heads what is arguably the best-respected women's college in the country.

But, Walsh says, "I'm very happy where I am."

What about Judith R. Shapiro? As president of Barnard College, the all-female neighbor of Columbia University, she's used to complicated institutional relationships.

Shapiro says she's supportive of the new Institute, especially its potential to be a leader in gender studies.

But she adds, "I really love being president of Barnard, and I'm fixing to stay here."

The final selection will fall to President Neil L. Rudenstine, who according to the Harvard-Radcliffe merger agreement must consult with a group composed of former Radcliffe trustees and members of Harvard's governing boards.

Former President of the Harvard Board of Overseers Charlotte

P. Armstrong '49 and current Overseer President Joan M. Hutchins '61will join Corporation members Hanna H. Gray and James R. Houghton '58 on the Harvard side of the table.

A'Lelia P. Bundles '74, Pendred E. Noyce '77, Nancy-Beth G. Sheerr '71 and Suzanne Y. Murray '62 will represent Radcliffe's former government.

Over the next months, these eight individuals will be entrusted with the search for a candidate who may determine the future of the Institute.

"This is harder than becoming a dean [at an established institution] in some ways," says one administrator. "[There,] you have baby deans and mini-deans and structures. You don't have to fight for a seat at the table, respect for your school."