Radcliffe Has Not Disappeared

To the Editors of the Crimson:

We very much appreciate the comprehensive article on Radcliffe's finances in the November 29 edition, but your opening statement and some of the facts and basic assumptions were misleading or incorrect. I mention a few of them below.

1. Radcliffe did not disappear as the result of the 1977 agreement, but emerged stronger than ever, responsible for determining its own programs and priorities, raising all its own funds to support its own programs, turning over to Harvard all tuition funds aid by Radcliffe students, and contributing in addition between $1.3 and $1.4 million to Harvard for financial aid. Furthermore, in 1977 Radcliffe did not "end its 98-year history as a private women's college with close historical ties to Harvard;" that status is maintained today. As has been true since Radcliffe's founding, the Harvard faculty provides instruction to Radcliffe women.

2. Radcliffe women have been receiving Harvard degrees that bear the Radcliffe seal and are countersigned by the president of Radcliffe since 1963.

Radcliffe women and Harvard men have been living in each other's dormitories since coresidence began in 1971.

Women students today have the best of two worlds: they are students of both Radcliffe and Harvard. The relationship between the two institutions has changed over the century to accommodate changing times and changing needs. But what has never changed is Radcliffe's to providing undergraduate women with access to a Harvard education. Alda K. Press   Director of Public Information   Radcliffe College