Radcliffe’s purpose is a mystery for the majority of undergraduates, more than two years after the merger of Radcliffe College and the University formally transfered responsibility for female undergraduates to Harvard College.

While the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study has retained its Garden Street locale—only a few minutes’ walk from Harvard’s undergraduate center—its role in student life has diminished dramatically.

Seventy-three percent of undergraduates say they do not understand the purpose of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, according to a recent survey of 408 undergraduates conducted by The Crimson.

While the undergraduate majority might not know the purpose of Radcliffe, leaders of women’s groups on campus say they are interested and excited by the research and scholarship opportunities the Institute provides.

And Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Dean Drew Gilpin Faust says this lack of understanding is simply part of a larger issue—explaining a new, unique addition to Harvard that is continuing to define itself.

Debating the Merger

The 1999 merger agreement mandated that Radcliffe cut formal ties to undergraduate groups. And in two months, Radcliffe will end its financial backing of the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP)—the last remaining undergraduate student group funded directly by Radcliffe.

The Institute provides $5,000 annually for the WLP, but next year responsibility for the group will shift to the College.

WLP Co-Chair M. Kate Richey ’03 says that with the many administrative tasks facing Faust when she arrived as dean last year, continued WLP funding was overlooked in the shuffle.

“They actually just realized that they were still funding us this year,” Richey says.

Radcliffe’s primary relationships with undergraduates now take the form of research partnerships, mentorship and externship programs.

But some undergraduate groups are still hoping to maintain contact with the Institute. Even these students, however, say they are unclear about what Radcliffe was—and what it is becoming.

At a University known for its history and traditions, they note, institutional memory among students is often short-term. The students who protested what they referred to as the “demise of Radcliffe College” in 1998 have since graduated. What was once an advocacy movement which appeared on the pages of national media publications is now merely a memory for the occasional campus feminist.

And those who knew Radcliffe in its last days as a College will soon receive their diplomas. The women of this year’s graduating class are the last to be admitted to Radcliffe College.

“People who are here now don’t know what’s been lost,” says Rani Yadav ’03, co-chair of the WLP.