The committee has sought to develop a plan for combining the Institute's focus on women's studies with its commitment to studies in other academic fields. The committee of academics will make suggestions on how Radcliffe could revamp its administrative structure and will make a final report in early February.

Faust said that she believes her own experiences as a female academic will allow her to bring a unique perspective to Harvard's round table of deans.

"Part of my personal experience has been as a woman, coming into an intellectual world undergoing great changes," she said.

Faust has a professorial appointment in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences; she lead the Women's Studies Department at Penn.

She is also a trustee of Bryn Mawr College, from which she graduated in 1968. She did her graduate work at Penn, receiving her Ph.D. in American Civilization in 1975.

Faust's specializes in the American Civil War. She is the author of Mothers of Invention: Women of the Slaveholding South in the American Civil War. She is currently working on a book about the war's death toll.

A native of Virginia's Shenendoah Valley, Faust has written several books about the Confederacy and Southern women.

--Staff writer Kathryn L. Rakoczy can be reached at rakoczy@fas.harvard.edu.