Most schools give the military a directory of e-mail addresses, Dunphy said.

"Since that has become the conduit of choice for distributing the directory, and it is easier on the [military] service and cheaper for taxpayers," the Navy has begun to do some of its campus recruiting electronically, in addition to attending job fairs and other recruiting events.

Dunphy said that while they have no statistics on rates of response through e-mail or on particular campuses, many Harvard students have expressed interest in hearing more about opportunities in the Navy.

Some students were annoyed at having received a personal solicitation, but most either did not respond or wrote back favorably, he said.

While the military may have a legal right to recruit on campuses receiving federal funding--of which Harvard receives a significant amount, Dunphy said--Harvard has developed a reputation for being inhospitable toward the military and its traditional recruitment programs like the Army's Reserve Officer's Training Corps (ROTC).

The University disbanded its ROTC detachment during the 1960s. Then, in 1993, the Faculty Council voted to stop paying MIT for including Harvard students in its ROTC program in protest of the military's "don't ask don't tell" policies toward gays.

Alumni have since established an independent trust fund to pay MIT for Harvard's students.