New Radcliffe Trust May Undercut Role of RUS

When Harvard University and Radcliffe College merge on Oct. 1, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) will become a student government with nothing to govern.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 announced last week the formation of the Ann Radcliffe Trust, an organization that will hand out funds to student groups interested in women's and gender issues.

Until now, that was RUS' job, which means the 31-year-old union now faces an existential crisis about its role in a post-Radcliffe world.

RUS' main funding source, a $5 term bill charge to all female undergraduates, will disappear after this year. With the merger, the student government of the formerly all-female college must open its voting ranks to men.

For the student activities that RUS funds, from Education 4 Action to the Coalition Against Sexual Violence (CASV), the switch means the loss of access to a quick and frequently generous source of funds.

The trust's potential recipients worry that Lewis has not yet specified whether students will be involved in the granting process itself--or if control will fall solely to Karen E. Avery '87, an assistant dean of the College who has also been named director of the trust.

That uncertainty makes RUS Co-President Kathryn B. Clancy '01 uncomfortable.

"We have a problem with one administrator ruling over an entire organization," she says.

Lewis says he is determined that student groups formerly reliant on RUS will not suffer financially because of the merger. Over the next year, he will be designing the trust, with help from a student-faculty advisory committee.

"We're committed to funding a grants process," Lewis says. "The details of how it will work out have yet to be worked out."

The new Radcliffe Institute will join the College in contributing to the trust. Interim Radcliffe President Mary Maples Dunn will be sending a personal request that Radcliffe alumnae contribute up to $50,000 to the fund.

The creation of the trust may lead RUS leaders to disband their group, as the trust becomes the main benefactor of women's issues on campus, Clancy says.

"We always imagined the trust as a new name for RUS," she says.

And what if the trust doesn't distribute funds to the groups RUS might choose? Clancy says RUS has amassed a rainy day fund now totaling $34,000, which could be doled out in small amounts for years to come. "We could give $1,000 a year for 34 years," Clancy says.

Clancy says she is optimistic that the trust will fund the kinds of programs and groups that RUS has supported for more than 20 years.

Still, she is wary of an administrative attitude that only "grown-ups" can handle money.

"I think we know what to do with money, seeing as how we've been dealing with money for quite some time," Clancy says. "I'm exhausted by their constant emphasis on them giving us money, given that we all give them $30,000 a year."

Student groups that have received funding from RUS say they too would be more comfortable knowing students have had a hand in their grant.

"It's sometimes easier for students to know what the contribution of an organization is to the campus," says Elizabeth D. Chao '00, president of Women in Science at Harvard and Radcliffe (WISHR).

Chao says the merger will hit WISHR's finances particularly hard because the group has traditionally received a $600 grant from Radcliffe College, in addition to its RUS funds.

The group, which sponsors speakers and conferences, will apply to the Trust to make up these funds too. Yet Chao worries that WISHR might need to tailor its programming to fit the goals of the grant committee.

"We usually get money from Radcliffe automatically, without having to apply," Chao says. "That was very nice. We always knew we had funding to support our activities. We always had flexibility because Radcliffe never asked how we spent that money."

Clancy and Chao say they will be watching Harvard administrators carefully to see if they are ready to assume responsibility for women's special needs.

That oft-repeated skepticism already has administrators shrugging that they are doing the best they can.

Yet some student leaders, like CASV's Co-Chair Alexis B. Karteron '01, are looking for physical proof that Harvard cares.

"I think a women's center would be a great start," she says