Construction on the main wing of Radcliffe's was Graduate Center will begin in February, President Wilbur K. Jordan announced this week. The College has been assured of the $929,000 required for the building. The main wing will contain social and recreational facilities for Radcliffe graduate students.

A drive to raise the additional funds necessary for the rest of the center, which will consist of dormitory and refectory buildings, is now in progress. The cost of the refectory wing, the next planned for construction, is estimated at $350,000.

The Cliffe College Council has voted $100,000 from income from unrestricted endowment towards the Graduate Center.

Opening Due In 1956

To date, the largest single contribution has been an anonymous gift of $430,000, made last winter.

The first Graduate Center building will probably be opened in the fall of 1956.

When completed, the graduate quadrangle will provide rooms for 125 people and a social center for the 300 Cliffe graduate students. The college now has housing facilities for only 39.

The great majority of Annex graduate students have had to make their own living arrangements elsewhere in Cambridge.

The total estimated cost of the graduate center is $2,000,000. This includes a sum for fellowships.

To Provide "Focus"

Th entire drive has been conducted on a nation-wide basis, and will continue until the full goal for both buildings and the much-needed fellowships is achieved.

The Graduate School, Jordan has said, "requires a physical center: there is no focus which is so necessary for the growth of cultivated human beings."

Becuase a high percentage of the graduate body is from foreign countries, it is felt that a Graduate Center will help bring the students together in a more satisfactory manner.

Radcliffe grants the third most Ph.D.'s to women in the country--after Columbia and the University of Chicago.

Georgian Style Favored

Despite an organized movement on the part of some alumnae, the Center will be of Georgian design, in red brick. It was felt by some that modern architecture, similar to that of the Harvard Graduate Center, should be used. The College favored Georgian style, however, so the Quadrangle would fit in with other Radcliffe buildings.

The entire program has prompted approval from other women's colleges. "We encourage many of our students to go on to Radcliffe for their graduate work," said Sarah G. Blanding, president of Vassar College. "I know that a center will inevitably heighten the experience of young women at Radcliffe."

The new quad will supply the one element of strength lacking at Radcliffe's graduate school, President Jordan said.