Council Learns Institute Details

President Neil L. Rudenstine made a rare appearance at yesterday's Faculty Council meeting, where he joined Radcliffe College President Linda S. Wilson for a discussion of last week's announcement of a merger agreement between the two schools.

Asked by members of the 18-person council about some of the deal's specifics, the two presidents provided a more in-depth glimpse than has to date been released about the future of the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

Wilson told the council that researchers at the new Institute will fall into four categories.

One group will be composed of visiting scholars--many of whom will be quite junior at their own institutions, along with more established visiting faculty members.

The Institute will also give "term appointments" of up to five years for especially distinguished scholars from around the country. Finally, the last group will be Harvard faculty members from across the University invited to study at the Institute on a yearly basis.

According to Secretary of the Faculty John B. Fox Jr. '59, the two presidents' statements seemed based on a carefully thought-out plan for the Institute's future.

As the outline of the new Institute emerges detail by detail, officials from both sides stress that the first dean will set the course, but suggest that a few existing research facilities may serve as models.

Fuzzy Around the Edges

For the last week, both Radcliffe and Harvard officials have declined to give many specifics about the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, saying that most details have yet to be determined.

"I expect that during the coming year or two, the dean of the Institute will, with help from faculty members and others, shape an academic plan for the new Institute," Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said last week.

And in response to reporters' questions at last week's press conference, Rudenstine painted the Institute in only broad strokes, calling it "rare" and "very, very unusual."

"It means you are pushing the edges," he said. "All institutes of advanced study share the single goal of furthering knowledge where only there was ignorance before."

At that time, Rudenstine sketched a vision of the new Institute as a knowledge-seeking group similar to the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study or the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif.

Representatives of those institutes said they welcome the new Radcliffe Institute to their family of advanced study, though they voiced confusion about how Radcliffe will ultimately define itself academically.

A Model Institute

According to Rudenstine, the new Institute's closest parallel will be the Princeton Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research organization located near Princeton University, but not officially affiliated with the school.

Founded in 1930, the Princeton Institute invites scholars in fields as wide-ranging as history and physics to engage in pure research for one to two years.

"What ties the broad range of research work that's done here together is that every individual pursues scholarship and pure research for its own sake, and follows his own research interests," said Georgia Widden, public affairs officer for the institute. "There isn't any concern whatsoever for applications. No one is ever asked what is going to be the practical effect of their work."

Widden said the institute is a "scholarly paradise" at which intellectuals, frequently visiting professors from colleges and universities, are given a year without the demands of classroom or committee work to focus simply on research.

She called the new Radcliffe Institute "the new kid on the block," noting that her institute is so well-known in academic circles that it is known simply as the Institute for Advanced Study--no geographical location required.

But the advantages of the new Radcliffe Institute--including a starting endowment just $60 million less than that of the Princeton institute and official ties to Harvard's vast resources and renowned faculty--may send the New Jersey school's prospective scholars scurrying to spend sabbaticals in Cambridge instead.

At least one Princeton Institute faculty member whose research focuses on gender said she's not concerned, however.

"We get 200 applications for 17 places a year," said Professor of Social Science Joan W. Scott of the School of Social Science at the Princeton Institute. "We could take twice or three times as many every year who are just as good. All this can do is add to the still scarce researches that support research outside of teaching."

And Scott said she feels binding a research institute to the resources of university will add little.

"I don't see that that makes any difference one way or another," she said. "It presumes that people who have a year of leave want to spend a year talking to a lot of people, which they don't necessarily."

According to Scott, all a researcher really needs is "a good library or a good inter-library loan system." Everything else, she said, is extraneous.

The New Jersey institute also has a small permanent faculty who work alongside the institute's approximately 180 visiting scholars, which Scott said sets it apart from the new Radcliffe Institute. Permanent faculty members receive a lifetime appointment at the institute, and stay for an estimated 20 to 30 years. Faculty members, whose ranks have included Albert Einstein, tend to be world-renowned scholars in their fields.

"[Radcliffe] won't ever be the same," Scott said. She called Rudenstine's comparison simply "wrong."

"We have faculty," she said. "We're the only institute of its kind that has a faculty."

Fox said that members of the Faculty Council yesterday made note of the fact that the Radcliffe Institute will have no permanent faculty.

The Place of Gender

Despite yesterday's revelations, several details of the merger are still unannounced. For instance, the relative importance of gender studies at the Institute has yet to be determined.

A statement released by the two schools last week said the Institute's mission "will be to create an academic community where individuals can pursue advanced work in the academic disciplines, professions or creative arts."

The statement goes on to note that the Institute will "sustain a continuing commitment to the study of women, gender and society." Yet, both sides have said no decisions have been made about whether all, or just some, of the research at the Institute will focus on gender.

A magnifying glass on gender would set the Radcliffe Institute apart from other centers of advanced study. Neil J. Smelser, director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences in Palo Alto, Calif. said such a focus would provide the new school with an inherently "different character" from his school.

And Scott, whose 1988 book Gender and the Politics of History is considered a landmark in the field, said a gender institute could make a real contribution to current scholarship.

"My sense is that there's an opportunity to have an institution that works on serious gender research or there's an opportunity to make gender one part, but not the only part, of what goes on," she said.

"I think [the first] would be the braver course," she said.

Members of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences will be given a chance to further voice their comments about the new Institute when Rudenstine and Wilson present the agreement to merge at the next full Faculty meeting in May.

--Rachel P. Kovner contributed to the reporting of this article