Women's Guide More Than A Year Behind Schedule

More than a year after its projected completion date, The Women’s Guide to Harvard has not yet made it to a printing press.

The guide, the first student-written and edited book detailing the experience of women at Harvard, was originally supposed to be distributed to the Class of 2004.

Its editors then said, last spring, that the book would be finished in time to distribute to the Class of 2005 at registration this year.

But despite an undisclosed amount of money from the Ann Radcliffe Trust and the Institute of Politics, $1,500 from the Women’s Leadership Project (WLP) and still more funds from the Women’s Studies Program and the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study—a total budget of nearly $10,000—there is still no women’s guide.

The delay has angered its principle sponsor as well as several students who have worked on the guide and waited for its publication.

“I’m upset about the delay because, frankly, I want to see the guide,” says Karen E. Avery ’87, associate dean of the College and director of the Trust, the main sponsor of the book.

“It would have been nice to see it at registration, when students are especially eager to get that kind of information,” Avery says.

Others involved in creating the guide say they understand the difficulties in creating a comprehensive book, but also say they wish it had debuted as scheduled.

“It’s very late,” says M. Kate Richey ’03, co-chair of the WLP.

“I definitely wish it would have been possible for it to come out sooner—it would have been useful to that many more people,” adds Richey, who wrote for the guide two years ago.

Richey says publication of the guide has been delayed because of financial issues and out-of-date information that had to be updated.

Loosely based upon The Unofficial Guide to Life at Harvard, the 272-page book covers the history of Radcliffe as well as the academic, extracurricular and social experiences of women. It also includes a compendium of women’s resources and examines issues like women’s rates of tenure at the University.

Guide Editor Peggy T. Lim ’01 says the delay is simply due to the nature of the first-time effort.

“Any one who has attempted a project of this scale and on this subject would know that it is not easy,” writes Lim in an e-mail. “I too would have liked to get this out earlier, but my goal has been to balance quality with speed.”

Lim says she will further address concerns about the guide’s delayed debut in its introduction.

While Lim declines to specify when the guide will be published, guide designer Alice N. Lewis ’01 says she expects the book to be completed in the near future, barring further unexpected delays. Lewis says she is designing the last of the guide’s five chapters.

“I hope it’ll be done by the end of the month and sent to the printer by the end of the month,” Lewis says. “We should be very close to almost done, but we thought in August last year that we were maybe done.”

Shifting ownership of the project may have contributed to the guide’s protracted creation—editorship has been handed down repeatedly.

Former Undergraduate Council Vice President Kamil E. Redmond ’00 came up with the idea for the guide in the spring of 1999 in response to what she said was the weak voice of women on campus. She teamed up with Lim, then co-chair of the WLP, to start work on the guide.

But Redmond and subsequent editors, with the exception of Lim, washed their hands of responsibility for the guide upon graduating.

Several undergraduates who wrote for or edited part of the book lost track of its progress as the guide slowly disappeared off their radar.

“I didn’t even know it would be published,” says Colleen M. Gargan ’02, who edited a section. “I would love to see it before I graduate.”

Regardless of the guide’s delay, several students says they are anticipating its publication.

“It would be nice, considering I’ve been hearing about it since I was a pre-frosh,” says Chanda S. Prescod-Weinstein ’03, co-chair of Girlspot. “It’s especially important now, with the dissolution of Radcliffe...it’s incredibly important that people be able to have information at their fingertips.”

Richey says the guide will offer information about resources and activities that other publications do not highlight.

“There was a lot that as a freshman I didn’t really know about,” Richey says. “I didn’t know there were sororities and the Seneca and the Bee before coming to this school...it would have been nice to know, and I think the guide will do that.”

—Staff writer Juliet J. Chung can be reached at jchung@fas.harvard.edu.