Your gift helps the Institute by supporting the work of Radcliffe fellows, activities of the Schlesinger Library, and public events at the Institute.

Radcliffe Fellows

Since the creation of the Radcliffe Institute Fellowship Program in 1999, applications have more than doubled, and the number of science applicants alone has tripled. Your gift supports fellows at different points in their careers by giving them space, resources, and time to explore the boundaries of their research. Your gift also supports the work of fellows like fiction writer Geraldine Brooks RI ’06 and historian Caroline Elkins RI ’04, each of whom won a Pulitzer Prize in 2006. 

 
“During my fellowship year, I found an environment that was refreshingly open and that really valued creativity, curiosity, and the search for new knowledge. I feel strongly about what the Radcliffe Institute provides to both women and men, and I am happy to do what I can to encourage and support such a special place.”

—Luke Whitesell, 2005–2006 Radcliffe Institute fellow

Schlesinger Library

The Arthur and Elizabeth Schlesinger Library on the History of Women in America is the nation's premier repository for documents and books relating to the experience of women in America. To maintain the library’s position of preeminence, the Institute needs support for the acquisition, processing, and preservation of collections. Current items that have benefited from support include cataloguing and recording the papers of the National Organization for Women, preserving the culinary collection, which includes the papers of Julia Child and M. F. K. Fisher, and preserving special items such as the personal papers of Betty Friedan and Helen Keller, and the diary of Susan B. Anthony.

Public Events

Your support allows the Institute to produce public events, including annual conferences with a focus on gender, such as “Reproductive Health in the Twenty-first Century;” “Women, Money, and Power;” and “In the War Zone: How Does Gender Matter?” Your gifts also bring speakers like Pulitzer Prize-winning author Susan Faludi ’81, astronomer Ray Jayawardhana, Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen, and others to Radcliffe to share new thinking in a variety of fields—ranging from tissue engineering to leadership studies.

Photo by Tony Rinaldo