In a move to augment the status of female undergraduates at Harvard and Radcliffe, the Undergraduate Council has opened a discussion of the fundamental relationship between the two colleges.

The council voted last night to add the signature of the Dean of Harvard College to female diplomas. Currently male graduates receive diplomas signed by the University president, the Dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, the Dean of Harvard College and their house co-masters. Female diplomas lack the signature of the dean of Harvard College, but include the signature of the president of Radcliffe College.

"In 1963 Radcliffe College ceased to confer its own degrees. [The diplomas] are right now as they have been since 1977, if not before then," said Rachel E. Barber '99, a sponsor of a bill to change the diplomas.

Barber, along with five co-sponsors, brought to the council a bill to make female diplomas identical to those of males. The final version was heavily amended to the point that all of the bill's sponsors who were present did not sign the final version.

A 1977 agreement between Harvard and Radcliffe, which turned over the instruction of female undergraduates to Harvard College, stipulates that "the diplomas of [female] candidates will be signed in accordance with present practices." To change the diplomas would require a renegotiation of the agreement.

Barber said that one of the vital characteristics of the bill was its vagueness.

But this was changed when council members amended the resolution to specifically add the Dean's signature and to protect the presence of Radcliffe on the diplomas.

"I don't feel that I'm getting the same education as men. But the education doesn't have to be the same to be equal," said Ann E. Schneider '99-00, a sponsor of the amendment. "Our diplomas should recognize the existence of Radcliffe."

The bill prompted a fervent debate on the council newsgroup, mass mailings to solicit student opinion and brought more than 20 guests to last night's council meeting. Many audience members agreed with Schneider, and urged council members to protect Radcliffe on the diploma and continue to recognize it as an institution.

"I came to Harvard to come to Radcliffe too," said Elizabeth A. Haynes '98, a former council member and a guest at the meeting. "My opportunities as a woman would have been very different had Radcliffe not existed."

Haynes, along with other audience members who had originally opposed the bill, supported the amended version.

But the bill's original sponsors, except for former council president Lamelle D. Rawlins '99, who could not be present at the meeting, withdrew their sponsorship because they believed the intent of the bill had been changed.

"I think that because it advocates one particular change that it has less of a chance of opening up a dialogue about what this issue is really about," Barber said. "That is the relationship of Harvard and Radcliffe Colleges and the relationship of those institutions to Harvard University."

Although Barber thought the original intent of the legislation had been misconstrued, she said she hopes the debate shows the administration that the relationship between Harvard and Radcliffe is an issue students are concerned about.

The diploma legislation is "a Nelson-Grimmelmann bill," meaning that Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 can either sign or "veto" it. By signing a bill, Lewis agrees to either implement it himself or advocate on behalf of the council within the University administration.

Both Lewis and Radcliffe President Linda S. Wilson declined to comment on the diploma bill last night.