Just four days after Harvard and Radcliffe announced the two schools' intent to merge, hundreds of eager prospective students and their parents crammed into a cavernous Science Center lecture hall. The high school seniors gathered to hear the presidents of the two schools speak, a highlight of pre-frosh weekend.

In her remarks, Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson assured the crowd that the traditionally male-dominated Harvard has changed.

"Now there really is opportunity on every side for everyone," Wilson said. "Everyone is welcome here."

But Wilson hasn't always thought so.

For years, Wilson and other Radcliffe officials have quietly insisted--and its alumnae and supporters have all but shouted--that women are not, in fact, entirely welcome at Harvard. They said women still faced subtle forms of discrimination at Harvard and needed Radcliffe as an advocate and a supportive space.

In a speech in 1991, not long after she assumed the presidency, Wilson insisted women couldn't rely solely on Harvard.

"Full access for women students to a Harvard education goes well beyond just opening the doors to classrooms, labs and libraries," Wilson said then, countering outgoing Harvard President Derek C. Bok's assertion that Radcliffe's role as an undergraduate institution should end.

"It is much more complicated to move on to those much more subtle ways in which women students have not yet been allowed fully to flourish," Wilson said. "We are unwilling to let go of our connection with...our students."

Eight years later, however, Radcliffe is doing just that.

And while Radcliffe has been moving toward a transferal of its undergraduate responsibilities to Harvard for years, some undergraduates now say they don't understand why Radcliffe thinks its job is suddenly over.

Mission Accomplished?

During Wilson's tenure, Radcliffe has strengthened its research arms--the Murray Research Center, the Schlesinger Library, the Bunting Institute and the Radcliffe Public Policy Institute (RPPI).

Collaboration between the sexes has been a watchword during the past few years of Wilson's tenure, while she has downplayed the role of Radcliffe as an exclusively female space.

In 1993, Wilson worked to found RPPI. Two years later, the Board of Trustees reorganized the college into two wings: educational programs and the Radcliffe Institutes for Advanced Studies.

In these intervening years, Wilson's rhetoric about the place of students at Radcliffe has been conveniently bendable.

Radcliffe "multiplies opportunities" through its unique "dual citizenship" with "value-added" programs that work as an "opportunity, not an obligation," Wilson is fond of saying.

Read one way, Radcliffe is an essential "value-added" element of the female undergraduate experience. But interpreted differently, Radcliffe is merely "value-added" and could be seen as somewhat expendable to students.

With the chance to double its endowment under Harvard's umbrella, it is easy for Radcliffe to emphasize the latter is now true.

Since the announcement, Wilson and others have said that the upcoming merger marks a final victory for a Radcliffe College originally founded to provide higher education for women barred from Harvard.

"We win again," said an enthusiastic Radcliffe Vice President for College RelationsBonnie R. Clendenning after the April 20 pressconference announcing the merger plan. "For thevast majority of women, they've always wanted tobe part of Harvard, not alongside it."

And at a meeting explaining the merger toundergraduates last Thursday Wilson said shethinks Harvard is prepared to assume fullresponsibility for female students.

"Taking on such a responsibility and executingit is a process, not an event," she said. "I amvery convinced that in their hearts they want todo this."

And she added that "many women atHarvard...feel that [equality] has already beenachieved."

But students at the meeting said theirexperiences dealing with Harvard administratorshave been very different.

"We've found them extremely unresponsive," saidRosslyn Wuchinich '99. "They don't reallyunderstand the experience of women at thisschool."

Rabia S. Belt '01 said she was more "afraid" ofthe merger upon coming out of the meeting.

"I was worried that Radcliffe was going to goaway and leave us in the arms of Harvard," Beltsaid. "Now I know that."

According to another student, Harvard is farfrom ready to take on women's concerns.

"I think it's a huge responsibility," said MegRenik '02. "Harvard is an ancient institution thathas been male-dominated for so long."

At the meeting, students asked Wilson to assurethem that the new Radcliffe Institute for AdvancedStudy would publicly back their most importantgoals--a women's center, a Women's StudiesDepartment, greater support for rape survivors andgender parity among tenured Faculty.

Belt challenged Wilson to promise that theInstitute would make a public statement aboutsexual violence at Harvard.

"Will you stand with us?" Belt asked.

Wilson refused.

"There will be individuals within the Institutewho are willing to say that, but it will not be[the dean's] function to be your advocate," shesaid.

Responding to students' interest in a women'scenter, Wilson calmly elaborated the Harvardposition against "spaces that are aboutexclusion."

"You're bumping up against a majorinstitutional philosophy," she said. "It's nowonder you feel the situation is unresponsive."

"Men's Center"

That kind of institutional philosophy isexactly what needs to be challenged, says Ann R.Shapiro '59, co-chair of the Committee for theEquality of Women at Harvard, an alumni watchdoggroup.

"I don't buy that argument at all," she says."One could argue that Harvard is already a men'scenter. It's naive to assume that women do nothave certain needs just because men don't havethem."

Outside observers have said they agree morewith the students' pessimistic assessment thanwith Wilson's newly sunny one.

"There are many things that need to be donebefore we will be satisfied that the playing fieldis level," Shapiro says.

Wilson has argued that the new Institute willimprove conditions for women, particularly bycreating a new dean and a pool of top-notch femalescholars available as role models.

But MIT Professor of Biology Nancy H. Hopkins'64, who recently co-authored a report on genderdiscrimination at MIT, scoffs at the suggestionthat the Institute alone will solve Harvard'sgender problems.

"That's absolutely not going to do it," shesays. "I think it's terrific, but no, in order tochange this problem, women have to share thepower... What Radcliffe will become will be a finething in itself, but it will not change the genderproblem at Harvard."

Harvard, We've Got a Problem

Harvard officials acknowledge that theUniversity has had difficulties addressing women'sconcerns in the past, but say the new arrangementwill at least make the responsibility perfectlyclear.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles saysHarvard was accustomed to using Radcliffe as anexcuse for overlooking women's concerns.

"Several years ago we realized that we mustnever again say, 'Oh, Radcliffe can take care ofthat,"' Knowles says. "We must simply stop sayingit."

Harvard President Neil L. Rudenstine said afterthe merger announcement that it is too early tojudge Harvard's success on gender issues.

"It's very hard to fulfill a mission if youhaven't fully been given it," he said.

And Harvard administrators point out that someprogress has been made in recent years.

"Harvard College has progressed as far as anyinstitution in creating equal opportunities formen and women students," Dean of the College HarryR. Lewis '68 writes in an e-mail message. "Heretoo the task is not yet completed, but it is welladvanced, and we are proud of the results."

And even if Harvard has compiled a far fromperfect record--only one in eight tenured Facultymembers is female, for instance--now there are noexcuses.

The day of her inauguration as president in1990, Wilson told The Boston Globe that femalestudents most frequently voiced concerns about thelow number of female faculty members, physicalsafety on campus and the lack of a women's center.

Fast-forward 10 years.

At Thursday's meeting, she fielded questionsfrom a new generation of undergraduates aboutthose exact same issues, answering that "Radcliffewill no longer have responsibility for you as ourstudents--but we will care."

According to Harvard administrators, a Harvardthat now has full responsibility is better than aHarvard-Radcliffe continually passing the buckback and forth.

"Radcliffe has not played a significantwatchdog role in recent years," says Lewis, whohas said the job of Assistant Dean forCo-education Karen E. Avery '87 will gainprominence post-merger. "There are plenty ofpeople watching Harvard, and they will continue towatch."CrimsonShakhi Majumdar