At the time, the council received an initially warm response. Haynes said that in the several subsequent conversations she had with Nathans the dean was very "supportive" of the proposal.

In fact, Haynes said she was under the impression that the only things in questions were the proposal's details. The HUPD, she said, was also supportive of the measure-- "100 percent" so.

"I thought it was simply a question of scheduling, of getting this to happen, getting three meetings scheduled," Haynes said. "[Nathans] was just as concerned for student security as we were."

But in a public meeting of the Committee on College Life on January 10, Associate Dean of Freshman W. Burriss Young '55 seemed to reverse the FDO's position.

"There was notable resistance from Dean Young for a variety of reasons," said then-council-president David L. Hanselman '94-'95, who attended the meeting. "The reasons he intimated were [that] there were already some mandatory proctor meetings during Freshman Week, and [that] given the hot weather during late August, it would be uncomfortable to the students to add another mandatory meetings."

Council members said that although they have encouraged Nathans to do what the FDO and HUPD think is best in making use of their proposal, they did not expect last January's resistance to implementing any plan at all. Furthermore, students says that they are distressed by the mixed signals they are receiving from the FDO.

"I think it's unfortunate that the Freshman Dean's Office is not placing a higher value on security," Taylor said. "It seems to me the FDO is holding back HUPD's efforts for freshman security classes."

"The proposal put forth by Van and Liz seemed to be a commonsense way to get first years conscious of security issues, and the administrative resistance we get to this proposal is very disturbing," Hanselman said.

Young could not be reached for comment yesterday.

When asked about the proposal last week, Young said he had never seen such a proposal. But Taylor and council vice-president Justin C. Label '97, who also attended the meeting, both confirmed Hanselman's description of the events: that Young not only knew about the proposal, but also criticized it.

According to Taylor, Young said that the proposal was "not the best way to give this information, and [the FDO is] trying to find a different way to present this."

But council members say that they didn't understand the reluctance in implementing what they agree is an effective and inexpensive way to prevent crime.

"Crime is a serious problem at Harvard," Taylor said. "[Having security programming] would save the University a lot of liability, a lot of headache. Prevention is the best cure and there's no cure better than security classes."

"Security of Harvard first-years seems to be much more important than a half-hour of discomfort on a midsummer night," Hanselman said.

But in a reversal from Young's statements, Nathans said yesterday that the security discussions--even those during Orientation Week proctor meetings--would definitely happen.