On a moonlit night in early October, under the branches of a small apple tree, the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study was born.

A few stalwarts gathered that night in Radcliffe Yard to raise glasses of champagne in salute to the Radcliffe that had been a College for 120 years and, to the sound of a tolling school bell, meet the Institute that is supposed to propel Radcliffe into the 21st century.

Radcliffe officially merged with Harvard on October 1, 1999 to become the Institute, a full-fledged school of Harvard University represented on the Deans' Council. Since then, a host of thorny questions about the Institute's future have been quietly resolved.

In October, major decisions were deferred to the first permanent dean of Radcliffe, who had yet to be appointed. By May, Penn historian Drew Gilpin Faust had gotten the nod for the dean's post and won over the hearts of Radcliffe staff and aficionados with an agenda of preserving Radcliffe's unique history while helping the Institute attract bright scholars.

And though the Institute will focus on academic research and must keep its hands off undergraduate affairs--as spelled out in the merger agreement--Faust says she envisions herself as an advocate for women's issues at Harvard.

"Quite simply, we are going to become a voice for women at Harvard," Faust says. "I'm going to be the only female at the deans' roundtable and there is a motive to be an agitator...I'm not so sure that's the mission those people who hired me wanted me to have...but it needs to be done."

Though Faust won't take the helm until January, she has been meeting with alumnae groups nationwide as she finishes up her speaking engagements for the University of Pennsylvania, where she is currently a professor of American history.

Mary Maples Dunn, acting dean of the Institute, has also met with alumnae over the past year, explaining the finer points of the merger and why Radcliffe would want to give up its status as a college anyway.

"This round of visits is really to talk to alums about the changes [in Radcliffe], to answer their questions..." Dunn said in January.

The merger with Harvard came while Radcliffe was in the midst of its own $100 million capital campaign. And though the effort is only a few million dollars short of its goal--a celebration party is scheduled for October--the number of donations made to Radcliffe's annual fund drive is lower than past years.

"The participation rate concerns me," Dunn said to a group of Harvard and Radcliffe alums in February.

Radcliffe College never had a faculty of it s own, but the merger left the Institute with a $350 million endowment and a fund from Harvard to match money donated to the Institute for fellowships and professorships.

The first endowed professorship came in January. It was a validation of sorts for the new Institute.

The $1.5 million donation, given by Terrence Murray '62, chief executive officer of FleetBoston Financial Corporation, in honor of his wife, was sizable enough to demonstrate that big money donors were willing to write a check to the fledging Institute. Several more big-ticket donations have come in since.

While Radcliffe has been collecting funds of its own, its also been writing checks, including a $50,000 one to the Ann Radcliffe Trust.