Mather Master Looks Back on Varied Harvard Career

It's where she found true love. True intellectual love, true emotional love, and true love of the college experience. And, as she likes to say, she's never really left. So when the Class of 1975 returns to campus today for its 25th reunion, it won't be a homecoming for Sandra A. Nadaff '75--she has made Harvard home for almost 30 years.

As a member of the Class of 1975, Naddaff watched the barriers to gender equality at Harvard fall. Women began to make greater strides in terms of social opportunities and moved from the fringes to the mainstream of College life. From co-residency to female professors, women became more comfortable with their surroundings at one of America's elite universities.

While the changes may not have been so obvious at the time to the literature concentrator in North House (now Pforzheimer), they are now more apparent to her as the co-master of Mather House, one of Harvard's largest dorms. As a Harvard administrator and, more importantly, a confidant for students, Naddaff can see the difference that 25 years makes--and she likes it.

"Today the women are so much more secure," she says with a smile. Although this was apparent when she became a House master, it was not always that way.

A Different Time

The Class of 1975 faced a different kind of challenge from its predecessors. While many of the hard-fought battles students had waged in the late 1960s--from civil rights to Vietnam--were over, a new one was emerging over Radcliffe College. During the early 1970s the role of Radcliffe and its students changed rapidly at Harvard.

Perhaps the most significant change in College life came in 1971, when an agreement between Harvard and Radcliffe provided that women could live in the previously all-male Yard beginning in 1972. But Harvard had problems adjusting to a co-ed campus. The social scene could, at times, be frustrating, and the lopsided ratio of men to women at Harvard emphasized this sense of intimidation.

"I was in North House [now

Pforzheimer House]," Naddaff says.

"But my English tutor was in Eliot House, in Harvard. I'd go over there for study sessions, but it wasn't really a comfortable environment for me, though. You'd walk into the dining hall and get a sense of a whole tradition...that didn't belong to you."

Still, things began to change. By 1973 co-ed housing was changing the demographics of the campus, as men and women began to live together. The process, Naddaff says, was very exciting.

"What I remember vividly was when the freshmen women began living in the Yard. That was very strange to me," she adds. "We had spent all our time in the Quad. It felt very different, and students sensed that it signified a major change."

Still, while Naddaff liked to relax with her friends her academics were the first priority. Fortunately, Harvard did not close those doors for her.

"While we were physically tied to Radcliffe, we were intellectually tied to the University. We were never denied in that category," she says.

Naddaff made sure to make the most of her opportunities. She studied English, but specialized in foreign literature. Concentrating on French and Arabic, she spent a lot of her time focused on the books.

"I derived most of my identity and most of my experiences from academia," Naddaff says with the confidence of a Harvard professor. "Isolation was never as issue in academic community, I never felt that anything was closed to me. My academic experience was powerful."

And productive. She would use her stellar grades to get a fellowship to go to Egypt, then return to Harvard to get her PhD. in Comparative Literature in 1983. From there, it was smooth sailing in academia.

But literature was not the only thing she did at Harvard. Naddaff played the piano frequently, taking lessons and practicing several times a week. And she also spent time with her future husband, Leigh Hafrey '73.

They met the first week of her first year in Holmes Hall. "It was where the mailboxes were," she says, explaining her love-at-first-sight encounter. They began to date immediately and continued for 13 years, until they got married in 1984. In between they spent a significant amount of time away from each other. He was at Yale while she was at Harvard, she was in Egypt while he was at Yale--and then she went back to Harvard again.

Ultimately, Naddaff calls her undergraduate years an eye-opening experience.

"I remember it being a distinctly liberating thing," Naddaff says of her experience as a woman at Harvard in the early '70s. "Even then, things were changing. Everything was so diverse. Diversity has become such a buzzword in so many ways, but it does mean a lot. Now, even more so."

These changes were most obvious when Naddaff and her husband were asked to fill in as co-masters of Cabot House in the fall of 1992 for Yuri and Emmanuela Streeter, who took the semester off to travel. While Naddaff had won tenure as a professor of comparative literature and Leigh had been at Harvard briefly as a lecturer at Harvard Business School, neither had witnessed student life up close since their days as students.

"Becoming the acting House master was like coming full circle," Naddaff says. "There were many positive developments over the years I had been gone from the college residential scene."

Twenty years earlier North and South Houses [now Pforzheimer and Cabot Houses] had just been a place to stay. "We did not think of it in social or cultural terms...there was no House community, but rather it was a

dorm. There were no common rooms, no kitchens, not even a communal dining room. It was just our place to live."

The Quad had changed. Currier was built, not simply as a place to live, but as a House. Cabot was renovated in the 1980s, allowing several different people to live together.

"Four, five, six, or seven people could live together in a hallway," Naddaff says. "It changed the community of the House to make it what it is today."

A community which Naddaff was unaware of until becoming a House master.

"From teaching here, I thought that I knew a lot about the undergraduate experience, but I soon found out that I only knew about the undergraduates in literature--not for the large population," she says.

And while Naddaff would learn from her students, it was often difficult for them to understand the Harvard--and Radcliffe--that she came from.

"Lee and I would often say, 'I remember when...', but I think it is

difficult for students, and even the women, to understand what was going

on then," Naddaff says. "[In Cabot House in 1992] we were struck by the fact that women felt that they were academically and intellectually provided. They didn't feel any concern that there were any closed doors."

Social Scene, Then and Now

Being part of this new community was exciting, and Naddaff and her husband jumped at the chance when asked to be permanent co-masters of Mather House in 1993.

At the time, the pre-randomized Mather had a very strong athletic tradition with a homogenous, mostly male, population. A startling 45 percent of the House residents were athletes. This created a problem in the eyes of the new masters.

"If they're off site all of the time, it's very hard to create community in the House. They can't be with you," Naddaff says in a frustrated tone. Cabot House, where Naddaff and Hafrey had originally served one year earlier, had been much more diverse. And while they enjoyed the spirit of the House--Naddaff and her husband frequently went to athletic events to see Matherites--they longed for a House more representative of the Harvard student body.

Not surprisingly, they were big supporters of randomization. In 1995, the new College policy assigned blocking groups into Houses randomly, changing the compositions of the Houses forever. And while students accustomed to House flavors and styles were angered, it was a decision Naddaff and Hafrey defend to this day.

"Mather House was great, but it was not representative of Harvard. And we felt that was important," Naddaff says. "And it has changed a great deal in the last seven years. We really feel that the House is more diverse."

The 'Multi-faceted' Student

Besides the new confidence she sees in female students, Naddaff sees other differences between students in 1975 and students today. Students today are able to juggle so many more activities in addition to their studies--not always for the best, Naddaff warns.

"Undergrads today are so much more multi-faceted than they were

then. It is not unusual for students to be public-service leaders, extraordinary musicians and athletes, in addition to devoting time to their studies. My sense is that, when I was an undergrad, you had your own thing."

But at times Naddaff disapproves of such attempts to be a jack-of-all-trades at such a young age, saying that it causes students to lose their youth--or not even experience it.

"This is where I kick in as a mother. There is more pressure to grow up quicker and do more things. My generation was spared that. I worry some about the kind of pressures that that kind of development puts on someone," she says.

This pressure can lead to difficulties in other areas, such as the social scene, a common complaint among Harvard students now, but not among students in 1975.

"The dating scene is an interesting thing to reflect on," Naddaff says, looking back on the College's social scene in the early '70s. "There were very few or no formals. There were no parties and few, if any, dances. Yet we had a very satisfying social scene. I don't think we felt that the social scene was dead."

You can even see the changes, she says, in students' wardrobes.

"Lee and I were very surprised that males owned tuxes. That was completely different from our times. In the 1960s they cancelled high school dances and proms," Naddaff says. "College was an extension of that."

The institutionalization of social events, Naddaff says, provides Harvard students a replacement for the social scene she experienced as an undergraduate.

Fading Away

One of the recent memories that sticks out for Naddaff bridges the gap between her class and Harvard today: the dissolution of Radcliffe and its merger with Harvard in 1999.

"The College to which I was admitted didn't exist anymore," Naddaff says somewhat wistfully. The dissolution brings back memories of Commencement from 1975. Walking down the aisle, many of Naddaff's classmates, male and female, wore armbands to signify their commitment to equal rights. At the time, there were only 300 Radcliffe students to 1200 Harvard students.

"It's funny to excise the Radcliffe from the Harvard portion," she says. "But its so true for Harvard women today. It's perfectly acceptable--now."