Radcliffe, Harvard Officials

Negotiators from Harvard and Radcliffe are scrambling to nail down the details of their legal merger document before June 30--the date when Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson will leave her office and officials had initially hoped the agreement would be completed.

"We may not hit the date but we're trying to," said Anne H. Taylor, Harvard's vice president and general legal counsel.

If no agreement is reached by July 1, Mary Maples Dunn will be named Acting President of Radcliffe College, rather than Dean of the New Institute--an outcome which administrators had hoped to avoid.

Taylor said the down-to-the-wire timing is not a product of philosophical differences.

"There are no problems, there are no hang-ups, there are no obstacles," she said.

"It's just a lot of work," she added.

And according to Wilson, meeting the deadline is a high priority that continues to demand the attention of top administrators.

"Everybody is involved in these efforts," Wilson said.

Taylor said lawyers from both schools and key administrators, are all at Harvard to work on the agreement.

Those administrators include major players such as University President Neil Rudenstine, Provost Harvey V. Fineberg '67 and University Vice President for Finance Elizabeth C. "Beppie" Huidekoper.

Some high-level administrators who helped shape the initial agreement, however, are out of town.

Radcliffe Board of Trustees Chair Nancy-Beth G. Sheerr '71 and Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles were not in Cambridge earlier this week, and Dunn leaves for vacation today.

But Taylor said hammering out the legal nitty-gritty of the final document relies more on legal expertise than new ideas.

"All the relevant players are in town," she said.

We're not at a stage of major policy decision," she added. "We're at a stage of attending to an enormous variety of detail that's required to effect a complex transaction."

The two schools announced their intent to merge in April and Rudenstine said he expected the formal deal would be completed within 30 to 60 days of the initial deal, saying the remaining issues were "purely technical."

"Nothing that either Harvard or Radcliffe could see should be a barrier at this point," he told The Crimson in April.

"It's not as if there are substantial issues to be resolved," he said.

"It's just a matter of getting it done," Taylor had said in April.