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Advancement Highlights
A Year of Wonders
It’s a pleasure to thank the many friends who attended Radcliffe
Institute events and supported our scholarly and creative work
this year.
In all, new gifts and pledges to the Institute totaled $11,287,861.
Highlights of the year in giving include:
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Five members of the reunion classes of 1971 and 1981 established
important endowment funds to support a fellowship as
well as program funding for science; research on children or life
sciences; work in the arts and humanities; and a dean’s discretionary
fund. This kind of farsighted, flexible philanthropy
ensures that we will remain agile—able to take advantage of
opportunities as they arise and to meet the needs of scholarship
in a rapidly changing world.
Current-use, unrestricted gifts to the Radcliffe Institute Fund
rose by 9 percent, buoyed by a strong year for the phonathon.
Our student callers raised more than $450,000 from generous
alumnae/i and friends. We very much appreciate those who provide
this essential support for the Institute’s core operations,
and the enthusiastic Harvard College students who represent us
so well.
The Radcliffe Class of 1956 set a record for a fiftieth-reunion
class gift for a single purpose. The class raised more than
$410,000 for the Schlesinger Library, creating a fund that will
support collections highlighting women whose lives and accomplishments
took shape during the 1950s. We are grateful to
these Radcliffe women who are keeping the Schlesinger Library
vital and strong by helping to preserve and make accessible the
history of American women.
The Radcliffe Class of 1956 broke ground in another way as well.
On June 7, Pulitzer Prize–winning Radcliffe fellow Geraldine
Brooks RI ’06 captivated Radcliffe and Harvard alums from the
Class of 1956 at a luncheon in Radcliffe Yard. This luncheon was
one of many stimulating events that were part of the first fully
joint fiftieth reunion in Harvard and Radcliffe history.
Last November, our annual gender conference focused on gender
in the war zone, bringing scholars, members of the armed forces,
and others to Cambridge to discuss this subject. We then took the
topic on the road, with panels in San Francisco, Washington, DC,
and New York City. All three panels highlighted Radcliffe alumnae/i
and friends who were involved in the military, including a
Naval Reserve recruiter, a West Point professor, and a filmmaker
who is making a documentary about female soldiers in Iraq. Each
of the panels drew a large and engaged audience.
In October, historian Barbara McCaskill RI ’05 spoke to the Harvard
Club of Atlanta about her research on William and Ellen
Craft, a slave couple who made a remarkable escape, with fairskinned
Ellen disguised as a white male planter and William posing
as her servant. In the winter, Executive Dean Louise
Richardson spoke at the Harvard Club of Boston on the motives
of terrorists and what we have learned about how to combat them.
In the spring, four 2005–2006 fellows—choreographer Ann Carlson,
playwright Betty Shamieh, sculptor Sarah Sze, and composer
Dmitri Tymoczko—participated in a panel at the Harvard Club of
New York titled “Inside the Arts: Drama | Music | Dance | Sculpture.”
The panel was moderated by John Rockwell ’62, senior cultural
correspondent for the New York Times.
Year of Wonders, the title of a 2001 novel by Geraldine Brooks,
reminds me of the way we experience each year at the Radcliffe
Institute, as our fellows analyze and reflect, discover and create.
We are profoundly grateful to the many friends who make these
wonders possible.
tamara elliott rogers ’74
Associate Dean for Advancement and Planning
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