“We believe as a matter of principle the Radcliffe Institute should not stand in the way of women who wish to affiliate closely with Harvard College,” Rogers says.

But even with losing the exclusive right to solicit money from those females who graduated before 1976, one element of the agreement may improve Radcliffe’s bottom line.

Contributions to Radcliffe will now be counted the same as gifts to the Harvard College Fund for class fundraising goals and for the recognition of individual donors. In the past, gifts to Radcliffe were not included in such listings.

“It will probably encourage gifts to Radcliffe from both women and men,” Berman says. “That class credit matters to a lot of people.”

The Present Reaction

For the most part administrators say the response to their announcement from alums has been positive.

“Happy and positive replies...are outnumbering the uncertain ones by at least ten to one,” Knowles says.

And Board of Overseers member Karen G. Mills ’75 shares this optimistic view.

“The spirit in which it was written is a tone and a voice that I’ve been hoping to hear from Harvard and from Radcliffe,” she says.

But some still wonder why the agreement took so long to achieve.

“It’s not an uncontroversial thing to do,” Rogers says. “There are some women pre-’76 who feel it’s a little late.”

—Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.