The new Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study received a $1.5 million donation to endow a professorship of its own, Radcliffe announced last week.

Radcliffe--an independent college for 120 years until its Oct. 1 merger with Harvard--always lacked a faculty and used Harvard professors to teach its female undergraduates of the past.

Now, as the college looks to transform itself into the Radcliffe Institute of Advanced Study, it has slowly begun to amass a fleet of scholars that will define the next chapter in the school's history.

Terrence Murray '62 , chief executive officer of FleetBoston Financial Corporation, made the gift in honor of his wife, Suzanne Y. Murray '62, co-chair of the Radcliffe capital campaign. The donation will be matched by an additional $1.5 million from a Harvard challenge fund.

Mary Maples Dunn, acting dean of the Institute, said she will leave it to the first permanently-appointed dean to choose the first Murray professor.

The Murray professorship is not bound by criteria for any specific academic field, but instead will be appointed by the Dean of Radcliffe.

"The dean will have to decide what field [the professor will be from]. The Murrays have not said they have an interest in one subject over another," Dunn said. "Once we have an [academic] field, we have to explore the possibilities. One asks, who are the best people in the area?"

Dunn said the first Murray professor will probably begin tenure in the fall of 2001.