"I grew up with the idea that women could have a career and that was important in counteracting the atmosphere of the '50s," Gould says over lunch at Adams House, where she is a member of the Senior Common Room. "My father hoped all along that I would be a chemist, but there was no way I was going to do that."

After graduating from Mt. Holyoke in 1957, Gould married and started a family. After spending time in New York, Boston, Frankfurt, Paris, and San Fransisco, her marriage dissolved. She and her three children came back to live in Boston, and she became assistant to the master at Mather House.

While her children finished high school, Gould returned to social work school. A few years later, she graduated and went back to work at Harvard, where her daughter was an undergraduate.

"I basically raised the kids by myself," she tells me. "Now they're off doing wonderful things, we're all very close."

Unafraid of Controversy

The key to Gould's success lies in her ability to make people feel safe to talk about controversial and very powerful personal issues, associates say.

"She charges right into [them]--rape, date rape, sexual orientation, eating concerns and especially AIDS and STDs," says Rosenbury. "She's never really been afraid of tackling controversial issues."

Last spring, the Harvard administration allowed PCC to give condoms away at outreach programs and required that they be available to students at UHS, largely because of Gould's quiet persuasion.

Some UHS officials had been hesitant to openly display condoms for fear they would offend older patients. To make the transition easier, Gould bought 20 little wicker baskets which she filled with condoms and gave to doctors and nurse practitioners.

"Almost all the doctors' offices have little baskets of condoms now," Jaffe says with a smile. "Nadja got those little baskets herself...to make [the condoms] as unobtrusive as possible."