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June 2006
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Radcliffe Day
Linda Greenhouse ’68, the New York Times Supreme Court
correspondent and Pulitzer Prize winner, Radcliffe
Medalist
Radcliffe Day 2006
The day after Harvard’s Commencement is always Radcliffe Day, the
culmination of reunion week for Radcliffe College alumnae. It’s also
a day when the Radcliffe Institute’s roots in Radcliffe College are
especially evident and celebrated. This year for the first time, a Radcliffe
College alumna was selected to receive the Radcliffe Institute
Medal. Approximately eight hundred people attended the annual
luncheon where Linda Greenhouse ’68 received her medal and delivered
a poignant speech. Earlier in the day, the Radcliffe Alumnae
Awards Symposium in Agassiz House was attended by 375 people.
Holding with tradition, alumnae started the day by gathering to
honor classmates and friends at the annual commemorative service.
Linda Greenhouse ’68 Receives Radcliffe Institute Medal
Greenhouse, the renowned commentator on the United States
Supreme Court who writes for the New York Times, described the
shortcomings and achievements of her baby boom generation. Several
years ago, when she and her husband went to a Simon and Garfunkel
concert in Washington, DC, she burst into tears after hearing
the line “They’ve all come in search of America.” She couldn’t stop
crying, an unusual reaction for her, but a few days later, she realized
why. She had always believed that her generation would do a better
job than its predecessors and now she realized it hadn’t. “We had
not learned from the old mistakes,” she said. “Our generation had
not proved to be the solution. We were the problem.”
At the same time, however, Greenhouse acknowledged the impressive
gains that women of her generation have made in the workplace.
She listed several Radcliffe alumnae who hold high-level positions at
the New York Times: Jill Abramson ’76 is the managing editor; Susan
Chira ’80 is the foreign editor; and Alison Mitchell ’76 is the editor in
charge of news about education. “No young woman has to feel that
any door in journalism is closed to her,” Greenhouse said.
Women, Power, and Change: How Far Have We Come
At the morning symposium, each award recipient reflected on this
question. Pulitzer Prize–winning journalist Susan Faludi ’81, who
received an Alumnae Recognition Award, said consumer culture
has “manipulated feminist rhetoric to sell women everything from
credit cards to cosmetic surgery to antidepressants. In the process,
it sold women on a great complacency.”
Amy Gutmann ’71, PhD ’76, president of the University of Pennsylvania
and another recipient of an Alumnae Recognition Award,
said, “If we have learned anything from the great civil rights movement,
it is that there is no substitute for joining together and tackling
injustice head-on.”
Jane Roland Martin ’51, EdM ’56, PhD ’61, BI ’81, a professor emerita
of philosophy at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, who
also received an Alumnae Recognition Award, described how education
has changed women and women have changed education.
Judith Lewis Herman ’64, MD ’68, BI ’85, RI ’02, a pioneer in the
study of sexual abuse of women and children, said she tried to curb
her protestations whenever she heard a woman being disparaged
at work. “Even so,” she said, “I was mouthing off all the time.”
Herman received a Graduate Society Award.
The other recipient of the Graduate Society Award, Elaine Pagels
PhD ’70, the Harrington Spear Paine Professor of Religion at
Princeton University, was unable to attend the symposium.
The Jane Rainie Opel ’50 Young Alumna Award was presented in
absentia to Jehane Noujaim ’96, an award-winning filmmaker.
Distinguished Service Awards were presented to the following six
alumnae: Joan Harvey Burns ’56, Ann Farist Butler ’51, Paula Budlong
Cronin ’56, Ann Myers Hershfang ’56, Katharine F. Mack ’46,
and Sheila Brown Rice ’51.
Alice Randall ’81 Speaks at Commemorative Service
Radcliffe Day began with an early morning service in The Memorial
Church, at which the Radcliffe Reunion Choir sang and representatives
of reunion classes spoke. Cassandra Chrones Moore ’56 delivered
the welcome, and Alice Randall ’81, a novelist, gave the address.
For full coverage of Radcliffe Day, visit www.radcliffe.edu/alumnae/events.
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