"I don't think you're going to see the Radcliffe Institute being the lever to make Harvard do things in its other schools," she said. "Its role will not be to be a monitor, an agitator, a scolder."

Wilson advised the undergraduates to work towards building a consensus among their fellow students and Harvard administrators that women's issues and RUS are important.

"If Harvard undergraduates value what RUS has to provide, they will want to support it," she said. "If your interests are not being addressed, you need to get political."

Clancy responded after the meeting that students are already lobbying and organizing.

"She was asking us to do even more, but we're only students," she said. "I was really hurt by that comment."

Nevertheless, Clancy said she was "encouraged" by the meeting, which yielded far more questions than could be addressed in the hour-and-a-half allotted. Wilson promised to consider all the questions in coming weeks.

"Everyone was clamoring to speak," Clancy said. "That was wonderful."