While they are concerned about RCAA, alumnae leaders said other details negotiated this summer are more appealing.

RCAA leaders praised the decision to bar Harvard from soliciting money from women who graduated from Radcliffe before 1976, a group that had previously been reserved for Radcliffe College.

Post said that arrangement will allow the new Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study a base on which to build.

"It's a drop in the bucket for Harvard, and it gives the new Institute a chance to start with something because it has no alums of its own," she said.

Dean of the Faculty Jeremy R. Knowles said that RCAA leaders will still have an opportunity to advocate on behalf of female students.

"I hope that the members of RCAA will see their future in supporting the goals of the Institute," Knowles said. "If there are those who wish to support women undergraduates, they can of course do so through Harvard College."

Bundles said that alumnae would continue to be vigilant on that front.

"A lot of people are going to be watching to see what kind of commitment Harvard makes," she said. "I'm a 47-year-old woman who has worked in corporate America for 25 years, and I know that as much as I have been successful, that the playing field is not level. And the playing field is not level in the classrooms at Harvard, and I know people don't always like to hear that."