On a chilly Saturday night late last September, Adam G. Prentice, a bright young honors students at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst, fell through the roof of a greenhouse near the campus Morill Science Center.

He bled to death as a result of deep cuts he sustained from the fall. Police quickly ruled Prentice's death as an alcohol-related accident.

The 21-year-old junior had been drinking at a campus party that night and left near midnight. Witnesses said he staggered along campus roads for about a mile.

After a brief investigation, police concluded that Prentice climbed over a six foot wall onto the greenhouse and fell through its glass ceiling.

But Prentice's mother is not so sure that her son was entirely accidental and suspects foul play.

For one thing, Barbara Prentice discovered that her son had at most three beers the evening of his death and his blood-alcohol level was .12, not high enough to impair him, she said. And Adam had always been afraid of heights and was not a risk taker.

But what troubled Barbara Prentice the most was the possibility that UMass-Amherst police missed important evidence because they were more concerned about the university's image than about her son's tragic death.

Prentice emotionally recounted Adam's story at a March 5 Senate Education Committee hearing on the Accuracy in Campus Crime Reporting Act (ACCRA), a bill that could substantially change the way college and universities handle crimes committed on their watch.

But after yielding to pressure from lobbyists--including those representing Harvard's interests--the bill's authors gutted many of ACCRA's most controversial provisions from both the House and Senate.

In late March, the Senate Education Committee released a significantly watered-down version of ACCRA. A similar version was overwhelmingly passed by the House last Wednesday as a part of this year's Higher Education Act. After a conference committee irons out details, the bill is expected to pass Congress with a veto-proof majority.

What remains in the bill--a requirement that all college campus police departments provide a public and updated log of their activities--is already a law in many U.S. states including Massachusetts.

But the major thrust of ACCRA--fundamental reform of campus disciplinary procedures, like Harvard's Administrative Board--will not likely be debated in Congress until next spring.

ACCRA would also require all college administrators to report every crime they learn of, closing a loophole that now allows crimes reported to some officials to go unreported to law enforcement--and thus avoid inclusion in a college's annual crime statistics.

ACCRA would also give the Department of Education (DOE) sharper teeth to clamp down on colleges and universities that do not meet these tougher new standards.

Proponents say they will reintroduce key portions of the bill the next time Congress decides to scrutinize the regulations governing the 1965 Higher Education Act, under which campus crime provisions are enforced.