“When we heard how many men had been chosen for this year, there was a lot of discussion over lunch. A lot of people were upset,” Plaskow says. “A lot of people were expressing relief that they had been fellows last year, feeling that last year was maybe the last year to be in a women’s community that was really special.”
But other fellows, especially the younger ones, welcome men and object to the idea of a single-sex Institute.
“Excluding men from Radcliffe doesn’t seem right. There’s something that’s not very egalitarian about forming an all-women’s club,” says Pamela M. Keel, an associate professor of psychology who spent her 2001-02 fellowship studying eating disorders. “There were men last year. I didn’t feel like their presence in any way undermined the experience for me.”
SITTING AT THE TABLE
But gender at Radcliffe is not merely an internal consideration.
As a result of the merger, Radcliffe is now defined as a separate entity within Harvard, on par with the Medical School or the Law School.
Faust thus has an influential role as a member of the President’s Academic Council, the group of deans that regularly meets to inform University-wide policy decisions.
When Faust spoke before a group of alumnae in her new role as dean in 2001, she touted Radcliffe’s new role within the University as a way that the Institute could advocate broadly on behalf of women at Harvard.
“Radcliffe at last has a formal seat at the Harvard table,” she said, “and can now begin to help change the menu and the guest list.”
Similarly, the report of an ad-hoc committee on defining the post-merger Radcliffe stressed the importance of “furthering opportunities for women at Harvard and in the academy generally.”
Now, as recruiting female faculty weighs on the minds of Harvard’s top administrators, Radcliffe is expected to play a leading role.
When University Provost Steven E. Hyman came to Harvard last year, he vowed to work closely with Faust to recruit and retain female faculty. Though he met with the Institute’s dean once last year to discuss the matter, no subsequent meetings have been held this academic year.
As Institute administrators hash out their final decisions on next year’s Radcliffe fellows, they maintain that their commitment to women, gender and society remains one of their guiding principles.
But with Radcliffe’s vocal alums looking on—not just graduates from the college but former participants in the fellowship program—administrators cling to the Institute’s new identity and say they will stand by their new approach.
“We cannot discriminate on the basis of gender,” Vichniac says. “It’s not legal, and we’re not interested in doing it.”
New groups of scientists and a special team of scholars studying immigration are likely to be on Radcliffe’s guest list, and some of them are likely to be men.