FDO Changes Publications For Coming Year to Reflect Radcliffe Merger

Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges have not signed an official merger deal yet, but you wouldn't know it from looking in the mailboxes of the Class of 2003.

This summer, admitted students will receive a guide to College life entitled "The First Undergraduate Year at Harvard," instead of "The First Undergraduate Year at Harvard and Radcliffe," as the handbook has been called in years past.

And the guide's welcome letter--once signed by Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson and Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine--will now be signed by Rudenstine alone, according to Dean of Freshmen Elizabeth Studley Nathans.

A section in the parents' handbook on the history of Radcliffe was speedily revised by the Harvard News Office to reflect the upcoming merger.

While first-years will still attend the time-honored presidential barbecue in Radcliffe Yard, this September a Radcliffe representative will not join Rudenstine on the receiving line. And Nathans said officials have discussed moving the event to Sever Yard in the future.

The Freshman Dean's Office (FDO) has decided to revise much of its literature for the Class of 2003 to reflect Harvard and Radcliffe's intention to merge, in part because of tight deadlines, according to Nathans.

"The parents' handbook and material for first-years were in the final editing stages when the change was announced," Nathans said. "Lots of text in there had to be changed the moment the Radcliffe thing came through."

And while some changes in literature and plans for first-years will go into effect for the Class of 2003, additional changes may be in store for future classes.

Administrators said the Harvard-Radcliffe Science Alliance, a pre-orientation program for women interested in math and science, will continue this year but may not survive to see the Class of 2004.

"It's pretty hard to speculate beyond next year," said Radcliffe spokesperson Michael A. Armini. "We don't have the answers right now."

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 has said in the past that the College would not be willing to sponsor programs that are available to students of only one gender, and the role Radcliffe will play in organizing undergraduate programs in the future is unclear.

Nathans said she was not sure whether female undergraduates still think the Science Alliance program is necessary.

"Down the road, one of the things we'll want to reevaluate is whether there is any longer a need for programs to encourage women to pursue sciences," Nathans said.

"What we're hearing from students recently is that there's not the old feeling of 'I'm a woman and therefore I can't find a welcome in,'" she added.

But some undergraduates said they felt women could still benefit from the single-sex pre-orientation program.

"It was a good feeling to meet a bunch of other women in the sciences and have that kind of backing when you make future decisions," said Gabrielle B. Dreyfus '01, a Science Alliance participant. Dreyfus said she has noticed fewer and fewer female students in her physics classes in recent years.

But even as the FDO phases Radcliffe College out of its literature and events, Nathans said the new Radcliffe will continue to play at least one role in first-year affairs.

Mary Maples Dunn, the incoming head of the new Radcliffe Institute, will deliver the annual Radcliffe Lecture to first-years during orientation week in a program that will also include DuBois Professor of the Humanities Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Jones Professor of Classical Greek Literature Gregory Nagy.

"She is a splendid speaker and of course a particularly articulate spokesperson for and about women," Nathans said.