President Neil L. Rudenstine said yesterday that he supports a public service program proposed last month by Professor of Psychiatry and Medical Humanities Dr. Robert Coles '50.

Coles told The Crimson in late September that he would consider leaving the University if he could not find support for a project which would bring together students and faculty in public service projects.

"I'm hopeful things will work out," Coles had said. "Obviously, if things don't work out, I would leave."

Rudenstine said yesterday that Coles had approached him with an idea for a program which would allow Harvard faculty to lead study groups for students involved in community service over the summer.

"What can happen and what should happen to undergraduate studies in public service, I think everyone would agree, is a complex thing because there is no immediate professional link," Rudenstine said.

The president said he and Coles have discussed a series of study groups led by Harvard faculty members. The groups would involve professors who could take time from summer research schedules with summer term service projects such as those performed by Phillips Brooks House.

"[For] students to have a chance to reflect on what they're doing, to get some distance from it, to think about the larger personal and intellectual implications of it, and to do that with a faculty member or with anyone in the field, would be a real help to those programs," Rudenstine said.

But the president said he has not considered extending the scope of Coles' proposal beyond the summer.

"One question is to what extent does it make sense for undergraduate studies to mount courses in which there is a public service component," Rudenstine said.

In the past, Coles has proposed several courses requiring public service which were rejected by the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS).

Rudenstine said his support for a summer term of study in public service does not extend into term-time curriculum, which he said is the domain of the FAS.

"That's something really for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences to think about, to think about what ways it's appropriate and to come to its own conclusions about," he said