Mendelsohn noted that the rally was about “supporting rather than challenging” the committee’s findings.

Thirteen professors spoke at yesterday’s meeting, most of them women, and voiced interest in the intricacies of student life and the administration’s treatment of victims of sexual assault.

At the meeting’s outset Professor of International Health Jennifer Leaning ’68 summarized the three major components of the report’s recommendations: a new office for centralizing resources and support, a reinvigorated and experimental approach to education about sexual assault, and a tweaking of current disciplinary procedures to make them more transparent and expedient.

After overwhelming applause, University President Lawrence H. Summers thanked the committee—as well as the student activists who brought the issue to widespread attention.

Faculty immediately voiced their opinions, mostly supportive, of these various recommendations, citing the thoroughness of the committee’s year-long investigation and the pervasiveness of sexual assault as reasons to endorse the report.

“The committee’s emphasis on preventative education underlines that this issue is everyone’s responsibility,” said Dean of the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study Drew Gilpin Faust, noting that the end of Radcliffe as a women’s institution meant that “the lives of women undergraduates are now fully the responsibility of the College.”

Other professors said that the report’s recommendation to use a Single Fact Finder (SFF) in cases brought before the Ad Board was a small way of changing undergraduates’ perception of the disciplinary body.

“[The SFF] will ensure that every complaint will be fully investigated,” said committee member Katharine Park, professor of the history of science and chair of the Committee on Women’s Studies.

But it was the issue of Harvard’s culture and social climate that spurred the most discussion from the speakers, who went beyond the scope of the report to express concern about alcohol, social space and personal relations between students.

“We would be fooling ourselves if we thought that preventative education would have an enormous effect in and of itself, as studies have shown that the effects of preventative education are extremely limited,” said Arthur Kleinman, professor of anthropology. “Alcohol is the crucial issue.”

Many professors concurred with Kleinman’s view on alcohol, and several suggested a separate inquiry into the use of alcohol on campus.

“Significant progress will require a significant investigation of how we address issues of alcohol among our undergraduates,” said Pamela K. Keel, assistant professor of psychology, who drew attention to the Leaning Committee finding that an overwhelming percent of sexual assault cases involved alcohol.

Summers cited these statistics at the end of the meeting, saying, “It would be at our peril if we did not seriously discuss the role of alcohol on our campus.”

“While I am enormously impressed by the utility of any observations put forth here, it is a mistake to fail to recognize that in this is an issue of culture and general attitude,” Summers said. “This is a reflection of the beliefs we have as a community.”

Dean of Undergraduate Education Benedict H. Gross ’71, who in recent weeks has stated his commitment to evaluating student alcohol use at Harvard, said after the meeting that the Faculty’s response to the committee had illustrated the importance of this issue.