Avery Handpicks Students on Ann Radcliffe Trust

College administrators are quietly assembling a student-faculty committee to oversee the Ann Radcliffe Trust, a powerful group that will dole out nearly $20,000 in annual funding to groups dealing with women's issues.

But some students complain that the process of choosing undergraduate representatives has been conducted in secret at the whim of a single administrator, Assistant Dean of the College Karen E. Avery '87.

In the wake of the Harvard-Radcliffe merger, students say they are concerned that the inclusive spirit of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS), which used to control funding for women's groups on campus, will be lost in the closed-door process.

Avery, who heads the Trust, says she's "been picking student leaders and others who'd have a key interest."

But others have cried foul as Avery begins choosing committee members without a public selection process or clear criteria for potential members.

"I am also disturbed that Dean Avery hand-picked the students to sit on the committee for the trust," says David B. Orr '01, a member of the Undergraduate Council, in an e-mail message.

Orr sponsored a successful bill before the council on Sunday night that calls for student representatives to the trust to be elected by the Student Affairs Committee (SAC) in the same manner as other student-Faculty committees.

The Trust committee, which will distribute anywhere between $15,000 and $20,000 a year to student groups interested in women's and gender issues, may still be dominated by students--Avery says student representatives will outnumber faculty by as much as two to one.

The committee will have 12 to 15 student members and eight to 10 faculty, Avery says.

And although Avery will decide who will sit on the initial committee to advise the Trust, she says one of the group's first orders of business will be to decide how its future members will be chosen.

"They'll be helping to make things happen--it's exciting that we'll shape the future of the Ann Radcliffe Trust," Avery says.

The committee will also establish the application process for groups to receive funding from the Trust's sizable purse.

"We need to work out the plans for the grants process," Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 says in an e-mail message. Lewis will serve as a faculty representative on the committee.

Avery and Lewis say they have clear, immediate goals for the committee--establishing a system for funding and deciding how future members will be chosen.

But students are still unclear as to what the Trust will actually do.

"I do not know what the goals of the committee are, what the criteria is for being on the committee, who actually is on the committee, and what means is there of public accountability," says Rabia S. Belt '01, a member of several women's groups on campus, in an e-mail message. "Since the process is so secretive, it makes me worried that the committee will not be as effective as it could be."

Even students and faculty members who have already been chosen for the committee are uncertain about what their positions will entail.

"I hope to gain a better perspective about what the Trust is about," says Mark D. Palmenter '00, who has been chosen for the committee.

Palmenter has no affiliation with campus women's groups.

And Mallinckrodt Professor of Physics Howard Georgi '68, a committee member who is also Master of Leverett House, says, "I don't know what the particulars are of the committee, so I can't say much."

Some students say they have been chosen solely as representatives of their student groups.

Peggy T. Lim '01, co-chair of the Women's Leadership Project (WLP), was asked by Avery via an e-mail message to be part of the committee.

Lim says she told Avery that her co-chair, Stacy D. Truta '01, would also like to serve on the committee. Avery told her Truta could fill in for Lim if she was absent from a meeting, Lim says.

In choosing committee members, Avery says she "started out trying to get representation from women-oriented groups."

Although the committee will be charting unknown waters as it prepares to allocate the Trust's funds, Lewis says the group is actually the successor body of the Harvard College Women's Initiative. That initiative took shape from an informal group of undergraduates Lewis assembled called the "Women's Working Group."

"Though [the group] didn't have a formal agenda, I learned a lot from talking to [them] about where women's experiences here differed from men's," Lewis says.

Avery says she has not chosen all the members of the committee yet. Students already named include: Maryanthe E. Milliaris '01, who served on the Women's Working Group; Meredith B. Osborn '02, a former WLP board member who is also a Crimson editor; Katharine D. Clancy '01, co-chair of RUS; Lim and Palmenter.

Faculty members include Georgi, Lewis, Director of the Parents Association Julia G. Fox and Associate Dean of the Faculty Laura Gordon Fisher.

Avery says she hopes to complete the selection process by the end of January so the Trust can begin operating.

"We want to help student groups and help departments plan events. We want the students to know what the Trust is," Avery says. "I want it to be a household name."