The Coordinating Committee on Sexual Harassment's report for 1991-92, which discloses the number of reported sexual harassment cases in the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, indicates that in the last academic year, undergraduates filed two formal complaints against instructors or officers and one informal complaint, and made three requests for direct advice, Gill says.

In the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences there were four formal complaints against officers or instructors, no requests for informal intervention, and four requests for direct advice.

"My belief is that it happens more at the graduate school level because [professors and students] are closer in age," says McCarthy.

Many victims of harassment in the classroom are reluctant to discuss their experiences with anybody, let alone bring their experiences out into the open. Especially in relationships between teaching fellows and students, where there is a fine line between the perception and the reality of sexual harassment, students tend to keep problems to themselves.

One woman, who filed an official sexual harassment suit with the College against her math preceptor last year, says she still prefers not to talk about the incident, which she hopes to place behind her. But the accused instructor, math preceptor Otto K. Bretscher, says the allegations brought against him during the spring of 1992 were unfounded.

Bretscher says that although he became well-acquainted with the student, he only had a professional relationship with her.

"There was no discussion of any sexual kind between the woman and me," he says.

Bretscher says he does not agree with the University-wide rules banning relations between faculty and their students because the guidelines place a strain on the professional interaction.

"It should be possible to have dinner with a student and to talk about personal things," Bretscher says. "I don't find anything wrong with it."

Bretscher says that when the student complained that she had been harassed by him, the case went to a University official on the Coordinating Committee who began an investigation.

Bretscher hired a lawyer to smooth his way through the University's procedures, which he calls "ineffective and counterproductive."

After almost two semesters of discussions between the University and his lawyer, Bretscher says he was told to avoid any further contact with the student.

Although Bretscher says he used to be available to students in the evenings and on weekends before the complaint, he says he has stopped being so accessible for fear of seeming to over-step his professional bounds.

"I've changed my style of teaching and the students have noticed it," says Bretscher, who says his CUE rating has declined from a 4.8 to a 4.0 since he has become less accessible. "It only got me into trouble."

Despite the constraints that professors and teaching fellows may feel when they have to beware of the rules against sexual harassment, administrators say the policies protect students' freedom to study and learn in a comfortable environment.