The 2001 council survey also showed that 12 percent of students have had trouble sleeping or working due to party noise on weekend nights, and CHL members said that this issue must also be taken into account in reviewing the proposal.

“We need to learn how to party safely without disrupting anyone else, and this includes neighbors’ ability to study or sleep,” Adams House Master Sean Palfrey said. “I know that [nearby students] are hesitant to accost their neighbors, and say, ‘you guys are making too much noise, please tone it down.’”

While the final decision must be made by Gross, Eliot House Master Lino Pertile said that he thinks the Council of Masters will agree to support the move to 2 a.m.

“It seems to be a matter of much more importance to students then it is of the masters,” Pertile said, “But I do appreciate the desire of a considerable body of students who are very keen to be in a private party late at night.”

Palfrey agreed that the revised party hours could be a reality, but stressed the individual responsibility of student hosts for alcohol consumption, noise and damage from their parties.

“We have a good chance of having this succeed if everyone assumes responsibility themselves, and thinks about others around them,” Palfrey said.

Sparking the Fire Debate

CHL student members also lobbied the committee yesterday to reconsider the ban on fireplace use in undergraduate dorm rooms.

Theodore E. Chestnut ’06, who brought the council’s Nov. 24 resolution calling for a review, said that students were as upset with the unilateral implementation of the ban as with the rule itself.

“It’s not clear why now, after overseeing 100 years of the safe use of fireplaces, the administration has suddenly decided that the risks are too high to continue to allow their use,” Chestnut wrote in an e-mail.

Palfrey said that he thought the implementation of the ban was appropriate, but that he hopes that the school can work on eventually reinstating student fireplace use.

“The decision last year was made at an administrative level, and I think that is correct—they have to assume responsibility for the safety of students,” he said. “What I would prefer is if we could work back towards the place where students could use fires safely, because they’re an important part of student lives in houses that have fireplaces.”

Chestnut and Mahan, who is also running for council president, also emphasized the social value of controlled fires.

“This is a uniquely Harvard thing,” Chestnut said of the fireplaces in Harvard dorm rooms.

Several CHL members pointed out that the ban was instituted for safety reasons, but Chestnut said that a program of increased education, equipment and possibly fire registration forms, could help minimize any risk.