Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Robert B. Reich (D) was endorsed yesterday by several prominent female members of the Harvard faculty.

More than 400 women joined the Women’s Leadership Committee (WLC), a grass-roots network designed to build support for Reich among female voters and to advise the former U.S. Labor Secretary on women’s issues, the campaign announced at their Cambridge headquarters yesterday.

Graham Professor of Gender Studies Carol A. Gilligan, Wiener Professor of Urban Studies at the Kennedy School of Government Katherine S. Newman and Professor of Law Martha L. Minow are members of the new committee.

“I started volunteering for Bob Reich the first night of his campaign,” Newman said. “This particular committee is just another way of supporting the good work that he does.”

Newman, who came to know Reich through his work on social issues, said she will advise him on policies that would affect families.

“His policies are the most likely to matter to women and families, especially in their role as working mothers,” she said.

Minow, who has known Reich for 22 years, said she was recruited to the WLC by Clare Dalton, Reich’s wife and a former Harvard Law School professor.

She said she was already active in the Reich campaign.

“I’ve already been to a caucus—my very first,” Minow said.

Several Harvard undergraduate and graduate students were listed as members of the newly-formed committee.

Elizabeth N. Dewar ’02 said she planned to volunteer for the Reich campaign during the summer.

Dewar said she was unaware she had been placed on the WLC, but said she would volunteer wherever she was needed in the campaign.

“If they have placed me on a women’s leadership committee that’s entirely their prerogative,” Dewar said.

Dewar said she was impressed when members of the Reich campaign approached her and asked to her to volunteer.

“I admired and appreciated the fact that he was reaching out to target female voters,” she said.

The WLC includes several prominent former members of the Harvard community, including Phyllis R. Stein ’63, former director of Radcliffe Career Services and Florence C. Ladd, former head of Radcliffe’s Bunting Institute.

Reich press secretary Dorie Clark said the endorsement was timed to coincide with the upcoming Democratic convention, scheduled for May 31, as well as several upcoming “in-depth” policy speeches.

“It’s a time when I think a lot of campaigns are gearing up, and we wanted to send a message to women out there who are maybe undecided that Bob is a feminist,” Clark said.