Strains of Gilbert and Sullivan drifted up Agassiz's broad stairwell, along the hall, and up some narrow hidden steps in to the room where the legislature of the Radcliffe Union of Students was meeting last month. The 14 women, sitting cross-legged on the floor, were discussing a request from a group of cheerleaders for a grant of $100 with which to buy uniforms.

"We're here to give money for things that Radcliffe women want," one of them was saying.

"But we have to look at the impact it will have," another responded. "It has to somehow have relevance to women."

"They want money to cheer for the men's basketball team?" one woman asked, incredulous. "Forget it."

The debate began to heat up. "Women who want to cheer have paid just as much money as women who don't want them to cheer," said one. "You just can't write them off just because they don't fit our stereotype of a liberated woman."

Nothing was decided, the controversy ending in a decision to draw up applications forms and institute a system for evaluating requests from groups. Before moving on to committee reports, however, Barbara A. Norris '77, RUS president, told the legislators to "think about the effect of our grants on women's affairs versus giving money to things that women want."

RUS, Radcliffe's student government, is just beginning to rouse itself this fall after years of inactivity. Few Radcliffe women have ever known much about it, fewer have cared, and except for the fact that all Radcliffe students automatically pay $5 a year in RUS dues when they pay their term bills, the organization probably would have died long ago.

Instead, it has something like $11,000 to spend this year, with no constraints and virtually no one to account to. As stated in its constitution, RUS' purpose is to "represent, support and encourage the interest of undergraduate women." "Our greatest use is in doing things for women," says Norris; but RUS is having a hard time figuring out what women want, what to encourage.

It is easy enough to discern what some individual women and groups of women want--money. Even when the organization was for all practical purposes not functioning a couple of years ago, someone was administering a loan-grant program with RUS money. This function continues--last year RUS gave 17 Radcliffe students money to work on projects related to women, including a study of Appalachian-women and observation of the U.N. Women's Year Conference in Mexico City last summer. This year's budget sets aside about $3000 for loans and grants. It also allows for $2800 in grants to groups, and already this year RUS has given $2000 to the Women's Center and about $850 to the new Association of Black Radcliffe Women.

"RUS just divvies up money," says one former legislator who resigned after having gone to one meeting and who says she has heard nothing from the organization since.

But RUS officers insist the groups is doing more than just handing out money to other groups. "This year we set aside a smaller proportion of our money for loans and grants," Norris says, "We felt that giving out grants was good, but we also felt that RUS was not doing enough for the majority of women."

What should be done for the majority of women? Norris and vice-president Margaret Hunt '76, say they are relying on the results of a long questionnaire they distributed last spring. About 20 per cent of all Radcliffe students returned the questionnaire; of these about half the women who were involved in athletics felt that facilities were inadequate. So one of RUS' eight committees this year deals with athletics, keeping an eye on the Department to make sure it is providing the equal facilities for women that Title IX requires.

But Norris and Hunt, who are both on crew, say that actually only a minor part of RUS' energy is going into athletics. More important these days is the housing issue--last month RUS co-sponsored with the Quad Committee a petition against the 1:1:2 housing plan and now it is putting together a position paper on housing. RUS is one of the 13 groups making up the new student Affirmative Action Task Force. There is also a committee studying ways to increase the number of courses related to women, and there are plans for a speakers series.

"The things they do are just not that visible," says Amy E. Aldrich '78, a Mather House representative. "And the results are not all that tangible."

It is certainly true that few Radcliffe students know what RUS is doing, and that the legislature gets little if any input from the students it is supposed to be representing. Few of the elections for House representatives were contested last spring, and in some cases last year's president, Janet Collins '75, actually had to recruit candidates. Given these circumstances, some women question how RUS can possible do anything more than serve the interests of the 15 to 20 women who are still active in it.