The monumental merger between Radcliffe College and Harvard University in October 1999 left many problems unsolved.

It was not until almost a year later that 11 of the biggest names in higher education assembled in Radcliffe’s administrative headquarters.

The mission of this committee was to place the newly-hatched Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study on the path to success.

Members of the committee included the directors of the three most prominent American institutes for advanced study—themselves relatively new additions to the scholarly spectrum.

The committee issued a report the following February, urging the Institute to streamline its programs around its preexisting fellowship program.

Now, two years after the committee released its final report, the first signs of Radcliffe’s redefinition are coming into focus.

And directors of the other institutes say it will not be long before they consider Radcliffe their peer.

“They still have to figure out exactly what their fellowship program is going to look like,” says Doug McAdam, director of the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences (CASBS) in Palo Alto, Calif.

“It’s hard to imagine a scenario,” he says, “in which the Radcliffe center doesn’t very quickly become one of the preeminent ones in the world.”

'ACADEMIC PARADISE'

Radcliffe Dean Drew Gilpin Faust, who is frequently asked to explain what Radcliffe has become, has a ready answer at the tip of her tongue.

“An institute for advanced study is an institution that pursues knowledge at its outermost limits,” Faust explains. “It redefines the way we think about knowledge.”

The concept of an institute for advanced study originated in 1930 with the founding of the Institute for Advanced Study (IAS) in Princeton, N.J., as a small, Ivory Tower refuge for leading scholars to study in an environment without formal courses or curriculum. The IAS is widely known as the oldest and most prestigious institute, boasting four schools, extensive resources and a cadre of famous former members—including Albert Einstein.

“The Institute for Advanced Study is the granddaddy of all of these,” says W. Robert Connor, director of the National Humanities Center (NHC) in North Carolina’s Research Triangle Park. “It’s in many ways the standard-setter as well.”

Along with IAS, CASBS and NHC—approaching their 50th and 25th anniversaries, respectively—are well-established and respected as the three major institutes for advanced study in the U.S.