'Cliffe Dedicates Hilles Study Center

Radcliffe formally dedicated Hilles Library yesterday, and named its new $5 million library-study center in honor of Susan Morse and Frederick Whiley Hilles.

The sunshine was dazzling, and the windows--all five floors of them--sparkled. Workmen had spent all morning removing thousands of square feet of Tuesday's snow, so that the walks, terraces and courtyards were clear.

Inside, not a single one of the barefoot Cliffies that usually grace the building was in sight. Instead, a select group of Radcliffe trustees, staff, the College Council, and the library's donors gathered for the dedication ceremony, and later admired the building while they sipped champagne.

Mary I. Bunting, president of the College, presided at the ceremonies to name the building for Mrs. Hilles, a Radcliffe trustee, and her husband, who is Bodman Professor of English Emeritus at Yale University.

Lavish Praise

The speakers--Mrs. Bunting, architect Max Abramovitz, Librarian Ruth K. Porritt, Mr. Hilles, and Susanne J. Wilson '67, president of the Radcliffe Government Association--were lavish in praise of the library.

Speaking of the Cliffies' enthusiastic response to their newest play and study area, Mrs. Bunting remarked, "It's rather fun to think that we older citizens have done something better than the students thought possible."

Or, as Mr. Hilles noted, who could have expected that with Widener, Houghton, and Lamont--"considered by experts to be the finest undergraduate library in the world"--Harvard students would crowd into Hilles as they have?

But Hilles is, after all, a library, and in their admiration of the woodwork, the coffee shop, the comfortable chairs, the open spaces and the capacity crowds, the dedication speakers did not forget the books.

Hilles's 137.100 books mean that for the first time, Cliffies can have "some learning activity in the residence quad," Mrs. Bunting said. The library, with its books, tutors' offices and seminar rooms, is the "missing piece" in Radcliffe's future development, she added