Historian Faust Appointed First Radcliffe Dean

Amidst the subdued splendor of Loeb House's high ceilings and oriental rugs, President Neil L. Rudenstine announced yesterday that Drew Gilpin Faust of the University of Pennsylvania will serve as the first permanent dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study.

The Crimson confirmed her appointment on Friday, and Rudenstine publicly introduced Faust yesterday afternoon.

Faust is the Annenberg Professor of History at Penn and has served as director of the Women's Studies program since 1996. She will receive tenure in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences in addition to becoming dean of the Institute.

Though officials involved in the search had said they would like to have a permanent dean in place at Radcliffe this fall--one source said just last week that "having a permanent dean in the fall would be ideal"--Faust said yesterday she will not assume the Radcliffe helm until January 1, 2001.

This delay means Acting Dean of Radcliffe Mary Maples Dunn will remain in her post until Faust moves into Greenleaf House, a home on Brattle Street formerly reserved for the president of Radcliffe College.

Yesterday's announcement was a quiet one, with only a few members of the press in attendance.

In a sitting room decorated with dark Colonial portraits, Rudenstine stood stiffly in front of three reporters and several photographers while Faust sat nearby on a couch.

"Drew Faust is exactly what we wanted in a first dean [for Radcliffe]," Rudenstine began. "She is of the highest intellectual distinction and versatility and is outstanding in her own field."

"Her personal qualities are equally as important and impressive--she can reach out and work with many people," he continued.

After finishing his formal remarks, Rudenstine took questions. Dunn arrived shortly thereafter from the airport.

Faust fielded questions about everything from her own particular brand of feminism to what she envisioned as Radcliffe's role in the lives of undergraduates.

In response to a question about her views on feminism, Faust responded, "I'm reminded of that bumper sticker that says, 'Feminism is the presumption that women are human beings.'"

"But I would hate to pin [the idea of feminism] down for anyone," she added. "You can't find in me one idea, the one truth. [Feminism] can be different for everyone."

At Harvard, Faust will be the only woman to sit on the University dean's council, which includes the heads of each of Harvard's 10 schools.

She brings the credentials of an academic heavyweight to the position.

Besides her professorial responsibilities at Penn, Faust is president of the Southern Historical Association and serves on the executive boards of the Organization of American Historians and the Society of American Historians.

She is a trustee of Bryn Mawr College, from which she graduated in 1968. She did her graduate work at Penn, receiving her Ph.D. in American Civilization in 1975.

Faust's specializes in the American Civil War. She is the author of Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. She is currently working on a book about the war's death toll.

A native of Virginia's Shenendoah Valley, Faust has written several books about the Confederacy and Southern women.

Faust and her husband, Charles S. Rosenberg, a specialist in the history of medicine, were offered tenured positions at Harvard in 1989, which they turned down.

Though she said yesterday that the professorial appointments "never seemed worth the upheaval" of moving, Faust said the opportunity to head Radcliffe--and effectively shape the future of the Institute--"was something completely different, and something I couldn't duplicate at Penn."

Rudenstine said yesterday that Rosenberg will also receive a tenured position at Harvard, one "with lots of flexibility" to pursue his work in the fields of history, history of science and medicine.

Faust's appointment is the fruition of nearly an eight-month search that saw 80 to 100 names for the position pass over Rudenstine's desk.

Rudenstine personally spearheaded the search. He devoted an exceptional amount of time to choosing a dean for the Institute--by some accounts, nearly two hours a day.

"I made myself responsible for the appointment in the beginning," Rudenstine said yesterday.

The president was advised by two committees, one composed of faculty members and a second smaller committee of four former Trustees of Radcliffe College and four Harvard representatives drawn from the ranks of the Board of Overseers and the Harvard Corporation.

Early this February, Rudenstine and the committees had whittled the list of candidates down to roughly a dozen, with Rudenstine promising to have a short list of "five to eight by March."

Rudenstine said yesterday that two finalists for the dean's post came to Cambridge for interviews in the last few weeks. Faust got outstanding recommendations from the two committees, Rudenstine said, and "was clearly my first choice as well."

He also hinted that the finalists met with other University officials while visiting Cambridge.