The ad-hoc report suggested that the Public Policy Center’s work should be “fundamentally reframed.”

Jane Knowles, the acting director of the Schlesinger Library at Radcliffe, says that “Faust is following the recommendation of the ad hoc committee which is to ensure that all research be led by a faculty member.”

The current director of the Public Policy Center, Paula Rayman, declined to comment to The Crimson for this story but currently does not have a tenured faculty appointment at Harvard.

Brock says Rayman will be leaving Radcliffe at the end of this academic year.

Faust staunchly maintains though that the Public Policy Center will go on at Radcliffe.

“The Public Policy Center will continue to exist,” she says.

Trouble With the Alumnae

While Radcliffe is facing its own financial demons, the institute also has to address a formidable challenge in explaining its new mission to alumnae.

Much of the 1998 merger agreement was negotiated in secret, and even though then acting Dean Mary Maples Dunn crisscrossed the county in the wake of the merger to explain what the new Radcliffe Institute would be doing, many alumnae say they are still confused.

“They’re trying hard through publication and certainly making it possible for alumnae to meet representatives, but I think that’s a very difficult thing to do,” says Sandra Biloon `51, a member of the Radcliffe Association Board of Management. “The change was handled quietly, and I think some alumnae were surprised. It’s hard to get used to something new when the new isn’t something defined.”

Many alumnae say that they do not understand Radcliffe’s mission now that the institute no longer is responsible for female undergraduates.

The women who do not donate money or participate on committees are simply left out by Radcliffe, according to Melanie M. Niemiec `71.