- To establish guidelines for contracting with outside firms.

These recommendations would provide health insurance to almost all workers at Harvard, including those employed by outside contractors.

"We live in a country which does not provide health care to everyone, and it is a point of concern with us," Mills said.

The proposal to require contracting firms to provide health insurance proved the most contentious issue, provoking a letter of dissent from two of the eight committee members.

Paul F. Levy, executive dean for administration at the medical school, and Nancy L. Maull, administrative dean of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences, included a two-page letter in the report challenging the recommendation.

In the letter, Levy and Maull wrote that Harvard should not impose "moral" standards on outside firms and that such a move would increase costs and detract from the University's educational mission.

"As best we can determine, the committee's decision is based on a moral position... How, though, can one argue that [Harvard] has the moral right, or obligation, to impose a similar requirement on service contractors?" they asked. "A countervailing moral view, if one is needed, is that the University has an obligation to society to support its core teaching resources and research mission in the most efficient manner possible."