Remigio Cruz '86 and several other Harvard undergraduates hopped a bus to the South End of Boston every weekday this fall.

There, in the predominantly Hispanic neighborhood of Villa Victoria, the students spent the afternoons providing cultural and recreational activities for underprivileged youths.

"The main problem with these kids is their identity--they have very little to identify with," explains Cruz, the coordinator of this one-year-old Phillips Brooks House program, called Key Latch.

The 16 Harvard students who made Key Latch their principal extracurricular activity often became the principal figures in the lives of these Hispanic children.

So on Saturdays, the undergraduates left for Villa Victoria even earlier and often came back later.

Key Latch is typical of the work PBH is currently doing throughout Greater Boston, says John H. Macleod '84, the outgoing PBH president.

But the work in Villa Victoria also seems to typify a general trend towards community service in student activities this fall.

Student leaders and College officials point to a sharp increase in volunteers for public service work and a steady, if lowkey, commitment to student activities and services by the Undergraduate Council as the major themes in undergraduate life this year.

Paralleling this apparent rise in interest in directly helping others both on and off campus has been a muting of political debate, a hallmark of the Harvard campus in the tumultous late '60s.

Students and officials are reluctant to pronounce the complete demise of political activity in the student body. They point out that Harvard's political passions are often seasonal, particularly the debate over Harvard's investments in South Africa, which usually centers on what action the University should take at spring shareholder's meetings. The 1984 Presidential campaign also seems to have drawn many of Harvard's politically minded students away from campus.

While observers are reluctant to predict how long this period of quiet, concerned student involvement will last, they say the mood and activity of the campus is beginning to resemble Harvard in the late '50s and early '60s.

"There is [now] a quiet but deeper effort at practical ways of helping others," says Dean of Students Archie C. Epps Ill. "It is quieter, but only compared to the '60s. That period can now be seen as really exceptional."

The campus this fall actually had one serious political disruption, when hecklers shouted down Defense Secretary Caspar W. Weinberger '38 in a November 17 speech at banders Theater. And questionable behavior by the Harvard Band and initiation practices by the P Eita speakers club precipitated College crackdowns which dress some student complaints.

But, with few exceptions, students avoided confrontational instances on campus. Instead, they spent their time away from the classroom in often unglamorous projects.

The most dramatic change in student life, students and officials assert, is the emergence of volunteer in as the College's primary extracurricular activity.