But ’Cliffies were less socioeconomically diverse than their Harvard counterparts, because the school had a smaller endowment and less funding for financial aid. So in 1977, in their second “non-merger merger” agreement, Harvard agreed to pick up the tab for more than half of Radcliffe’s financial aid.

The agreement of 1977 formalized Harvard’s responsibility for education of female undergraduates—a responsibility that by then had long been shifted—leaving Radcliffe with an endowment but no real definition.

According to Patricia Albjerg Graham, who negotiated the deal for Radcliffe, two main issues dominated the 1977 “non-merger merger”—the abolition of admissions quotas on women and maintenance of a separate endowment for Radcliffe, which she says Harvard wanted to take.

“The trick was to hang onto the endowment until the vision emerged, and it took 25 years,” Graham says, referring to the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study that formed after the final 1999 merger.

Cohabitational Bliss

Despite the push to increase the number of women on campus, class of ’77 ’Cliffies say they were outnumbered in most dormitories and classes.

Housing integration proved trying both for administrators, who faced difficult logistical issues, and students, who became the agents of social reform.

Even so, most of the class was “militantly coeducational,” according to McDonald.

The Quad had roughly a one-to-one ratio of men to women, while each of the River Houses had a ratio in the range of four-to-one.

“[The River House ratios] didn’t make for a really good social life because the men felt like you were infringing on their turf,” says McDonald, a Quincy house alum.

Many recall Kirkland as a jock-filled House notoriously unfriendly to women. Men would actually pound on their glasses with forks whenever a woman entered Kirkland dining hall, McDonald says.

But many women who began their undergraduate careers in the Quad later transferred to the River Houses despite social friction and occasional sexism.

Lauren Gibbs ’77, a New York native who said she liked her first year in the Quad because of its feminist and politically active feel, transferred to Lowell House her sophomore year because of its central location.

“It was sort of like the difference between the city and the suburbs,” she says. “But part of me felt like I should have remained up at Radcliffe.”

Even though they were outnumbered by men at Harvard on the weekdays, according to McDonald, the weekends seemed to bring about a demographic shift.