Scrutinizing Radcliffe's Financial Management

To the editors:

In her excellent article on Radcliffe (News, Jan. 8), Rosalind Helderman overlooked two important things in assessing the current state of that institution.

First, in speaking about Radcliffe's mission, no mention was made of the bloated bureaucracy at Fay House. From fiscal 1992 through fiscal 1998, Radcliffe's general and administrative expenses compounded at a 14.2 percent rate, according to the college's annual reports. These do not include the expenses for the capital campaign, a sum by the way, which has been far in excess of the norm usually spent on campaigns of its size.

General and administrative expenses compounding at a 14 percent rate is unconscionable; no other college could exit with increases like this (in comparison, Harvard's have been kept in the low single digits). And Radcliffe is a college that does not have undergraduates. What are they doing over there? Never have so many done so little for so few.

Second, when speaking of Radcliffe's endowment, no mention was made at how poorly it has been managed. The compounded 10 year return was 12 percent--among the worst (if not the worst) records of any endowment of comparable size. In the past three years alone (the only years for which Radcliffe shows these numbers), the endowment has underperformed its modest benchmark number by an average of more than three percentage points per year!

Had Radcliffe produced even average endowment results, more money could have been spent on research aid to non-tenured women professors, a current Radcliffe initiative. Similarly, had administrative expenses increased at a much more moderate rate, perhaps undergraduate aid, another Radcliffe expenditure, could have been increased.

During the past few years, Radcliffe alumnae, through the Committee for the Equality of Women at Harvard, and a number of women professors at Harvard, have criticized the University for not doing enough for women. It might be better for them to look at Radcliffe, an institution dedicated to the advancement of women in society, and cast a critical eye and a public outrage at what is going on at Fay House. SAMUEL S. SPEKTOR, JR.   Jan. 11, 1999 The writer is a retired partner of an investment management company.