The Administration appears to have altered its policy on television coverage of University events--essentially in the direction critics of its old policy had demanded.

Dean Ford said Wednesday that Harvard's Council of Deans was maintaining a policy that television coverage should be based on its advancing Harvard's "educational function."

This formulation is different from one previously offered by the Administration, one that claimed events televised must be "balanced" in their presentation of views.

Ford said in an interview that the policy the deans are maintaining is barely different from one the Student-Faculty Advisory Council proposes. The Council of Deans discussed that policy at a meeting on Tuesday. It would have all events at Harvard open for television coverage "without discrimination on any ground of political content."

The deans' policy on coverage differs from the Advisory Council's proposal, Ford said, because the Advisory Council asks only that participants in a televised event be "informed" of the coverage, while the deans demand that participants be asked about coverage, not just informed.

Ford emphasized that the new policy did not leave all events open for television coverage.

"The mere fact that WGBH wanted to cover a demonstration doesn't mean we'll say 'yes,' if we don't think it has anything to do with Harvard's educational function," Ford said.

Only Educational

Harvard's policies on television coverage--old and new--apply only to educational television coverage. No commercial television coverage of University events has been allowed, with the exception of occasional sports events. When Boston's education channel, WGBH, wants to televise an event, it must obtain permission from the President's office and appropriate deans.

In January, Harvard refused to allow WGBH-TV to televise a Lowell Lecture Hall teach-in on the war in Vietnam arranged after Dr. Benjamin Spock, the Rev. William Sloan Coffin, Michael Ferber, a second-year graduate student, and two other men were indicted for conspiracy to help others evade the draft.