Harvard in Charge, Wilson Tells Students

Fielding tough question after question, a candid but occasionally testy Radcliffe College President Linda S. Wilson told about 35 undergraduates in the Lyman Common Room last night that Harvard College will be solely responsible for their concerns after the final merger agreement between the two schools is signed.

"If you have something you need or have to say, you need to say it to them, to Dean [of the Faculty Jeremy R.] Knowles and Dean [of the College Harry R.] Lewis ['68]," she said. "Radcliffe will no longer have responsibility for you as our students--but we will care."

The students, who included members of the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) as well as Women in Science at Harvard and Radcliffe (WISHR) and others, showered Wilson with questions about the future of their organizations and of women at Harvard.

Wilson told the assembled students that interest in the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Studies is running high. She said Radcliffe has received $6 million in new donations since the April 20 announcement. This was the first fundraising figure released by Radcliffe officials since the announcement--a full $2 million more than Radcliffe received in the first three-quarters of this fiscal year combined.

But in a conversation focused on undergraduates, Wilson, who was joined by other Radcliffe administrators including Dean of Educational Programs Tamar March, offered students no definitive commitments about the continuation of their groups.

"My questions weren't answered, and it wasn't because they weren't trying to answer, but because they aren't the ones with the answers," said RUS Co-President Kathryn B. Clancy '01 after the meeting.

"Every single time people asked a question, they would say 'Oh we're so excited [about the new Institute],'" she said. "It was so vacuous."

Wilson and March addressed questions about RUS's precarious future in the broadest possible terms. March called RUS funding a "student-to-student matter" and encouraged RUS members to engage in "consciousness-raising."

"Thursday night after Thursday night, I peek my head in [the RUS meeting], and I see a handful of passionate people--but not many," March said. "If you don't sustain a commitment because of other distractions, obviously, you are going to be out of the conversation."

One student said not only was she not reassured, but she felt "more unsettled" after the meeting.

"I know more specifically what I'm afraid of," said Rabia S. Belt '01.

At a gathering just prior to the meeting with Wilson, March told members of her student Dean's Advisory Committee that the one-year experimental committee will not be continuing in its current form.

Organized to help publicize Radcliffe events in the Houses, March said Radcliffe no longer needs a student group to "proselytize and carry our word forward."

But she said a new group might be organized next fall to explore the role of undergraduates at the Radcliffe Institute.

Asked about the future of specific undergraduate programs--including RUS, Education for Action and externships--Wilson said repeatedly that many details about the new Institute and its relationship to undergraduates would be worked out in talks over the course of the next year.

She also held out the possibility that some guarantees for RUS and other undergraduates could be written into the final, legally binding agreement.

"The merger agreement is not yet complete," Wilson said. "It's a good time to arrange visits to anyone who will listen."

Those who attended the meeting decided to follow Wilson's advice, organizing a lobbying group on the spot to try to influence the final agreement and to e-mail Knowles and Lewis in hopes of arranging a group meeting.

Members who will be in Cambridge for the summer said they hope to become more involved in the final merger negotiations over the next few months.

"I hope to see the final wording of the merger include specific plans for the future of Radcliffe programs and commitments from Harvard to investigate and address the status of women undergraduates at the College," participant Emily B. Wong '00 said in an e-mail message following the meeting.

Despite the participants' enthusiasm, Wilson and Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine have both said in the past that the major terms of the agreement have already been worked out.

"It's really just a technical matter from here," Rudenstine said on the day of the announcement.

Wilson repeatedly stressed yesterday that the new Institute will not take away opportunities from undergraduates and will bring more scholars focusing on women and gender to Cambridge. Yet she acknowledged that the former college will have no formal role in advocating for women at Harvard.

"I don't think you're going to see the Radcliffe Institute being the lever to make Harvard do things in its other schools," she said. "Its role will not be to be a monitor, an agitator, a scolder."

Wilson advised the undergraduates to work towards building a consensus among their fellow students and Harvard administrators that women's issues and RUS are important.

"If Harvard undergraduates value what RUS has to provide, they will want to support it," she said. "If your interests are not being addressed, you need to get political."

Clancy responded after the meeting that students are already lobbying and organizing.

"She was asking us to do even more, but we're only students," she said. "I was really hurt by that comment."

Nevertheless, Clancy said she was "encouraged" by the meeting, which yielded far more questions than could be addressed in the hour-and-a-half allotted. Wilson promised to consider all the questions in coming weeks.

"Everyone was clamoring to speak," Clancy said. "That was wonderful."