Universal 24-hour keycard access will not be instituted at the College's Houses--at least, not in the short time the Undergraduate Council had hoped for.

Council members spoke with Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis '68 and masters from four Houses yesterday at a meeting of the College's Committee on House Life, hoping to convince the masters to extend full-time access to all of the College's upperclass students.

The 8 a.m. meeting, held in Quincy House's senior common room, didn't go as council members had planned.

"We asked for 24-hour access, and the masters lined up against it," said Todd E. Plants '01, chair of the council's Student Affairs Committee and a long-time advocate of universal keycard access.

Three out of the four House Masters present--representing Pforzheimer, Quincy, Eliot and Mather--decided against opening their houses to students 24 hours a day. Only Quincy House Master Michael A. Shinagel, whose House is already open to all students, said he plans to keep his House open.

The masters cited safety concerns as the major force behind their decision.

"It is important to have a time when you can assume that the people you see will be members of the House," said Suzanne M. McCarthy, the Pforzheimer Co-Master.

McCarthy said she did not feel Pforzheimer House's after-hours police patrol could give the same protection that is provided by the security guard who stays in place until one o'clock a.m.

Preserving a sense of House community was another major part of the Masters' decision, according to Eliot Master Lino Pertile.

"It's a question of having at least a part of the day in which the house keeps its own individuality, its own identity, even its own privacy," Pertile said.

Plants said representatives of the UC were not convinced by the Masters' arguments. He said achieving 24-hour universal keycard access would continue to be an important part of the UC agenda.

"It has always been the UC opinion that Harvard students don't pose a threat to other Harvard students, whether in terms of vandalism or house spirit," Plants said.

Plants said the council sees limiting keycard access as an "unnecessary barrier" to inter-House interaction.

"You would think that the masters collectively would have a broader view of life at Harvard," Plants said. "But they see student Houses as the bedrock of campus life."

But despite yesterday's setback, members of the council say they are still optimistic about the future of universal, full-time keycard access.

The next step, Plants said, is to put pressure House Masters through their House Committees.

"Almost all of the HoCos voted unanimously in favor of universal access," Plants said. "They will have to talk to their masters on an individual basis."

Staff Writer Alexander B. Ginzberg can be reached at ginsberg@fas.harvard.edu.