When Harvard University and Radcliffe College merge on Oct. 1, the Radcliffe Union of Students (RUS) will become a student government with nothing to govern.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 announced last week the formation of the Ann Radcliffe Trust, an organization that will hand out funds to student groups interested in women's and gender issues.

Until now, that was RUS' job, which means the 31-year-old union now faces an existential crisis about its role in a post-Radcliffe world.

RUS' main funding source, a $5 term bill charge to all female undergraduates, will disappear after this year. With the merger, the student government of the formerly all-female college must open its voting ranks to men.

For the student activities that RUS funds, from Education 4 Action to the Coalition Against Sexual Violence (CASV), the switch means the loss of access to a quick and frequently generous source of funds.

The trust's potential recipients worry that Lewis has not yet specified whether students will be involved in the granting process itself--or if control will fall solely to Karen E. Avery '87, an assistant dean of the College who has also been named director of the trust.

That uncertainty makes RUS Co-President Kathryn B. Clancy '01 uncomfortable.

"We have a problem with one administrator ruling over an entire organization," she says.

Lewis says he is determined that student groups formerly reliant on RUS will not suffer financially because of the merger. Over the next year, he will be designing the trust, with help from a student-faculty advisory committee.