Knowles Played a Key Role in Harvard-Radcliffe Merger

To the editors:

Re: “In Memoriam: Jeremy R. Knowles,” news story, April 4.

Your excellent obituary of former Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles omitted one of Knowles’s signal contributions to the University: his integral role in the 1999 merger of Harvard and Radcliffe. The merger dissolved the 120-year-old Radcliffe College, created the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, and brought female undergraduates fully into the Harvard fold. Knowles and Mary Maples Dunn, who became the first acting dean of the Institute, hammered out one of the merger’s most contentious questions, whether Radcliffe would have its own tenured faculty or a collection of visiting scholars. He was a key player in a deal that was never a fait accompli.

As Crimson reporters covering the merger, we often found ourselves in Knowles’s University Hall office during the months of secret negotiations. He was a delight to interview: warm and witty, by turns conspiratorial confidant and elusive roadblock, but always brilliant and kind. He had unusual flair for a Harvard dean. We will never forget his debut as “Josephine Knowles”—in lipstick, wig, and billowing ball gown—at the Gala celebration of the merger in October 1999. Knowles and then-Provost Harvey V. “Buttercup” Fineberg ’67 serenaded the dignitaries with Gilbert and Sullivan songs personally rewritten for the occasion.

Knowles was a natural at the dean’s game of coaxing, cosseting, and cowing.

He charmed us even when he worked to frustrate our efforts. We miss him already.

ROSALIND S. HELDERMAN ’01
Washington, D.C.
ADAM A. SOFEN ’01
New York, N.Y.
April 4, 2008

The writers are former Crimson news executives.