Among all the firsts experienced by this year'sseniors, women in the class of '99 will be thelast graduates of the College to have the word"Radcliffe" on their diplomas. The "Class of '99"fleece vests and rings that many seniors boughtlast week will be the last bits of paraphernaliaemblazoned with the Radcliffe shield.

In April, Radcliffe officially ended its daysas an undergraduate college and ceded all controlof undergraduate life to Harvard. RadcliffePresident Linda S. Wilson announced that she wouldretire, leaving the fledgling Radcliffe Institutefor Advanced Study.

A major turning point in the history of theCollege, the dissolution of Radcliffe attractednational attention. Yet some members of the seniorclass say it hardly affected their experience atall.

Tally Zingher '99, the Radcliffe first marshal,says the merger was mostly symbolic. It showedthat "women no longer need to be here under aseparate name."

"It's a sign of positive change that the mergerhappened," says Zingher, who played Radclifferugby and participated in the Women's LeadershipConference. "Most women on campus I've spoken tofeel that Radcliffe didn't affect their dailylives. Calling it a college was not an accuratedescription."

The fall of Radcliffe coincided with a sharprise in the prominence of women on campus.

Lewis says he believes that "the womenundergraduates of this class have taken theirplace at Harvard like no previous class has done."

He cited leaders like Rawlins, former PhillipsBrooks House Association president Elisabeth A.Tomlinson '99 and A.J. Mleczko '97-'99, nationalwomen's hockey player of the year.

"I think of the emergence of these womenleaders more than I do about the anticipated endof Radcliffe's status as a college," Lewis wrotein a recent e-mail message.

E-Mail Revolution

The entrance of the class of 1999 also marked"somewhat of a beginning of an era for computingon campus," says Rick Osterberg '96, coordinatorof residential computing support, with theintroduction of pre-assigned e-mail accounts.

Although most undergraduates had e-mailaccounts by fall 1995, pre-registration was asignificant step: e-mail use was no longer anovelty, but a necessary part of daily life at theCollege.

For many students, e-mail has surpassed thetelephone in importance in campus life. Today,almost all professors and teaching fellows sendcourse announcements by e-mail. Party invitationscan quickly be sent (and forwarded) to dozens ofstudents.

"How people socialize among their friends,organize meetings, has completely changed" becauseof the ubiquity of e-mail, says Baratunde R.Thurston '99, Harvard first marshal and a memberof the advanced support team for FAS ComputerServices.

The rise in the popularity of e-mail has alsoridden an associated boom in computer use oncampus.