“An Institute for Advanced Study is not a concept or category readily understood by many people—especially those outside the academy,” she says. “But I plan to make it a household word.”

PARTNERS IN RESEARCH

While undergraduates once had sock-hops and study groups at Radcliffe, most future undergraduate involvement in the Institute will involve research partnerships that pair students with visiting fellows.

Though the Institute offers several programs for undergraduates—including mentorship and externship programs that pair interested students with alums—Faust points to the current Radcliffe Research Partnership program, which began in 1991, as an ideal example of potential collaboration.

Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 agrees.

“There is a tremendous opportunity for the kinds of connections students now have with faculty and fellows at [Harvard Medical School] and at some of the area studies centers, for example, to exist with the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study as well,” he writes in an e-mail.

When 43 new fellows arrived at the Institute last September, they were given the option of requesting a student research assistant. Interested fellows posted criteria to the program’s website and interviewed interested applicants.

“Research is a very lonely job,” says Irene Silverblatt, an anthropology professor at Duke University who was a Radcliffe fellow last year. “It’s something that you usually just do by yourself.”

One undergraduate changed her concentration to Visual and Environmental Studies as a result of her work with Barbara Hammer, a documentary filmmaker who was also a fellow last year.

Radcliffe Dean of Social Science Katherine S. Newman, who helps to plan the fellowship program, says she hopes the available undergraduate research partnerships increase.

“It’s really more a matter of the kind of financial support we have for making opportunities available for undergraduates,” she says.

Faust says she is interested in developing another formal program for students to work with Radcliffe fellows, most likely while they are working on theses.

Similar graduate-student partnerships are also under consideration, she added.

“This might include some space, some money, a title for the year, but we have not fully worked this out as yet,” Faust wrote in an e-mail.

STUDENT CONCERNS