Mary Maples Dunn became interim president of Radcliffe College yesterday as negotiators failed to reach a final merger agreement between the college and Harvard University before the initial July 1 goal.

Dunn was out of town when she officially assumed the College's helm in what Radcliffe spokesperson Michael A. Armini called a "smooth transition." Dunn is not expected to return to Cambridge until this weekend.

Still, yesterday marked a presidential transition that many had hoped would not be necessary, and negotiators said they are pressing on with their attempts to complete the merger as soon as possible.

University Vice President and Legal Counsel Anne H. Taylor said she estimates the process will take "not months like six months, but maybe weeks which could add up to a month."

At the time the agreement was announced, administrators had said completing the legal document was a mere technicality that would almost certainly be finished by the time then-Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson left on June 30.

"It's really just a technical matter from here," Rudenstine said in April when the agreement was announced. He predicted it would take between 30 and 60 days.

And as recently as last week, Taylor and Wilson had said they hoped to have the legal merger document finished before Wilson's departure.

But Armini and Taylor said the delay is not a product of ideological differences.

"I don't think either Harvard or Radcliffe really appreciated how much work was going to be involved in so many areas," Taylor said. "We're cooperating, and things are on track."

"We are slogging through an enormous amount of legal details," she added.

Until the agreement is concluded, Radcliffe cannot formally begin its search for the first dean of the new Institute.

"It's hard to do a search for the deanship of an institute that does not yet exist," Taylor said. "We very much want to get busy with that."

Otherwise, however, Taylor said the un-merged Radcliffe can function in many of the same ways it will be able to function once the agreement is completed.