Radcliffe Trust Town Meeting Offers Few Answers

Students came to Emerson 108 last night to ask about the Ann Radcliffe Trust. They left feeling their questions went unanswered.

Director of the Trust Karen E. Avery '87 met with two dozen students in a "town meeting"-style format, also featuring Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68, Acting Dean of the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study Mary Maples Dunn and Lewis' Special Assistant Julia G. Fox.

One student asked whether the Trust committee's application process or its minutes would be made public.

"Those are all possibilities," Avery said.

Another asked the panel to define the "women's issues" on campus.

Lewis responded: "We don't come at this with an agenda pre-defined."

The ambiguity left students unfulfilled.

"It's what I expected--the evasiveness with which questions are not answered," said Kathryn B. Clancy '01, co-chair of Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS).

Avery has been criticized recently for hand picking students to sit on the committee that will advise the Trust, a body that will dole out nearly $20,000 next year to women-focused groups.

"We had to start somewhere, and this is better than having me sitting there and saying here are the Ten Commandments of the Ann Radcliffe Trust," she said. "Some of this communication would have been better in the beginning. I guess I thought that we needed to get a committee and get going."

Lewis however said he felt comfortable with the committee, regardless of how it was chosen.

"I'm not all that concerned, there is a broad funnel of input," he said.

After a brief lesson from Lewis on the history of Radcliffe, administrators at last night's meeting focused on what the Trust will do for the campus.

"The Trust is not designed to replace RUS," Avery said. "The grants process is the one piece that the Trust takes over from RUS."

Avery and Lewis emphasized that the role of the Trust--including the grants process and selection process for future members--will be shaped by this first committee. But they also offered a vision of the Trust grounded in planning conferences and colloquia about women's issues.

"We have lots of programs in mind, lots of things we'd like to do and we're open to ideas and suggestions," Avery said.

Lewis said the Trust may fund these women-focused events, but monies would come from the College's budget and not take cash from the Trust's student group grant fund.

Students said they felt disenchanted with the administrators' event-centered ideas about the Trust.

"This feels a lot like networking," one student in the audience said. "What about the sense of community among undergraduate women?"

Besides discussing the Trust, students took advantage of having four administrators at their disposal, grilling the deans with questions about the nitty-gritty practicalities of Radcliffe's merger with Harvard.

Some in the audience lamented the loss of the Lyman Common Room, a space reserved for undergraduate women in the past and a room that Radcliffe is now starting to use for its own purposes.

"For a very long time people have cast envious eyes at the Lyman Common Room," Dunn said. "We'd like to re-think the use of that space."

Fox gave a short update on programs traditionally sponsored by Radcliffe that will now fall under the auspices of the College.

"Radcliffe College sponsored 10 travelling fellowships in the past, and they will be administered by [the Office of Career Services]," she said. "Externships and mentorship programs will still be coordinated under the Radcliffe Alumnae Association."

Fox said academic prizes formerly awarded by Radcliffe are "being looked at by the lawyers."

Dunn assured the audience that Radcliffe is not abandoning female undergraduates: "Radcliffe alums are extremely interested in undergraduate women."

But she also noted, "Radcliffe is now Harvard."