After meeting with representatives from several existing programs and studying residency rules at other universities, committee members hashed out the new residency guidelines and sent their recommendations to the provost and the president last summer.

“We have a much more firm grip on what we don’t want to lose or let go of, so that actually makes it easier to move ahead building things that are different,” Lamberth said.

From the outset of the meetings, committee members described time spent learning in the University’s classrooms and walking on Cambridge’s sidewalks as integral aspects of the Harvard experience.

“There was a very broad, deep and widely supported reaffirmation of the value of residency,” said Daniel D. Moriarty, the university’s chief information officer.

And some of the most vocal advocates of residency, he said, were students who spoke before the committee.

“Everybody had an interest in seeing the University do something that would not diminish their credentials,” he said.

Committee members and administrators said that what began as a discussion of a technicality grew into an examination of the meaning of a Harvard degree.

“It’s the sort of topic that at first sounds rather dry, but actually, when people got into it, it goes to the heart of what goes into a Harvard education,” Hyman said.

—Staff writer Catherine E. Shoichet can be reached at shoichet@fas.harvard.edu.