“The concern is with people who have not even thought about the safety precautions and who just say, ‘This country sounds great. I want to go,’” said Greenfield. “Those defenses against liability, and those defenses toward protecting students, force students to truly consider the implications in terms of safety before departing.”

Committee members said they also considered travel policies at other universities. Both Yale and Brandeis do not follow the State Department travel guidelines. Instead, they have their own lists of restricted countries drawn up by faculty committees.

But the committee decided not to adopt such a policy because it would place a significant “burden” on the faculty, according to Edwards.

“We had information about the policies pursued by other universities and the decision which we took was to put Harvard back in the middle range, not the most liberal, but not any longer the most restrictive,” said Coatsworth.

Greenfield said he was surprised by the speed of the policy change.

“I am glad that the new policy has been implemented before this year’s round of fellowship applications,” said Proud Dzambukira ’07, who led the online petition last spring.

“My hope is that this policy will be able to sustain itself for years to come, so we wouldn’t have to go through this process every year,” Greenfield said.

Other locations now on the College’s list of countries approved for sponsored travel include Nigeria, Liberia, Philippines, Zimbabwe, Uzbekistan, Algeria, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and the West Bank and Gaza.

—Staff writer Tina Wang can be reached at tinawang@fas.harvard.edu.