“Sometimes I wonder if [former University President] Neil Rudenstine was self-conscious about choosing an historian as dean,” Faust says. “My approach has been to look at the past as prologue to the present.”

This is the vision of Radcliffe’s future that Faust has adapted, and it is one that University President Lawrence H. Summers has emphatically endorsed.

“I think it’s a great tribute to Dean Faust the way Radcliffe is adapting,” he said at the Radcliffe-sponsored Strawberry Tea late last month, “With Dean Faust’s leadership, what’s now going to happen at Harvard is something the University has never had before—an institute for advanced study that will bring the greatest scholars from all over the world to do research in fields that range from economics to the inner workings of the cell.”

But to create a new Radcliffe that is in continuum with its past, Faust must attempt to reconcile the mission of the new Radcliffe Institute with what alumnae value most about its heritage.

“Dean Faust has an enormous challenge,” says Sandra Biloon ’51. “Her challenge is to build an institute of advanced study that will be renowned internationally. Her focus should be on doing that...Her basic charge is to create a very good institute, but without neglecting attention to Radcliffe values.”

From the beginning, this created an uneasy balance between alumnae interests—which the Radcliffe Association sought to protect—and those of the Institute.

“There’s a slight disconnect between what Radcliffe College was and what the Institute is,” says Figueroa. “The members of the Radcliffe Association are part of a group because of their association as undergraduate alumnae. [Their concerns] don’t always fit in nicely with what the Radcliffe Institute is doing.”

Women, Money and Power

At present, the Institute is bound to their built-in alumnae constituency—and their pocketbooks.

But some alumnae say that while their loyalty to the memory of their alma mater has not changed, it does not transfer to the Institute automatically.

“There’s something about the role of an alum that harks back to the original experience,” says Constance Carden ’66. “I am less invested in supporting an institute because that’s not what I attended—that would be the college if it were still there. I don’t feel compelled to give money to an institute. My financial loyalty is affected, but not my sentimental loyalty.”

“I am pretty sure that in another era I would have thought that Radcliffe would be in my will. I don’t think it will now,” says Barbara Healey Killian ’53. “I am now at the stage in my life that I would have contributed more. I will continue my support of Radcliffe, but I won’t go the extra mile that I would have for the college.”

Currently, the Radcliffe Institute is financially secure with an income from its endowment—valued at $256.2 million as of June 30, 2002—merger payments from Harvard University, fundraising and a small amount from rents and fees.

In Fiscal Year 2001-2002, more than 7,600 donors contributed $7.3 million in gifts and pledges, with $2 million set aside for the Radcliffe Annual Fund and over $1.3 million in planned or estate giving received, according to the Institute’s 2001-2002 annual report.

Merger payments currently constitute 18 percent of the operating budget, with gifts comprising 11 percent of the Institute’s operating revenue.