Dean of the Institute Drew Gilpin Faust says that when she first arrived at Radcliffe this past January, she was made aware of the budget shortfall.

“We identified a significant projected shortfall for the current fiscal year, and we immediately informed the University,” she writes in an email.

This winter’s ad-hoc committee report suggested that Radcliffe centralize the famed Bunting Fellowship Progra m and call it the Radcliffe Fellowship Program—making the the fellows the core of the institute, as opposed to one program of many.

The implication of the advice was that Rita N. Brock, the director of the Bunting, would have to be fired, and Brock was relieved of her position earlier this spring .

While Brock acknowledges that staff changes are necessary for Radcliffe—in fact, she says she told the ad-hoc committee that the Institute had too many high level administrators—she says that she was “a little surprised that it happened so fast.”

She in turn attributes the elimination of many mid-level positions throughout Radcliffe to the institute’s budget woes. In addition to staff cuts at the mid-administrative level, Brock says that as employees decide to leave Radcliffe, many won’t be replaced.

“I think that there have been staffing changes because of the budget shortfall,” Brock explains.

Many of those employees were fired on Friday, according to the source familiar with Radcliffe, who notes that “There’s a sense of panic” at the institute.

Another source close to Radcliffe says that three mid-level administrators were fired at the Bunting, and “a number of staff at Educational Programs were told they had one more year.”

Faust says that she immediately enlisted the help of financial experts in January when she learned of the shortfall, and that Radcliffe has now revised its budget so that it will be in the black when the fiscal year ends on June 30.

But while Radcliffe plans to report a balanced budget to the Univeristy, its staff numbers have been slashed.

“That’s how they’re balancing the budget,” the source says.

Tamara Elliot Rogers `74, associate dean for advancement at Radcliffe, maintains though that any changes in staffing are not due to Radcliffe’s budget troubles.

“It is absolutely the case that re-organization is not being done for budgetary reasons,” she says.

Rumors have also been circulating that Faust plans to eliminate, or at least radically alter, the Radcliffe Public Policy Center.