In response to an announcement from Harvard deans this week outlining plans for next year’s “January Term,” the Undergraduate Council’s Student Affairs Committee voted on Tuesday to recommend a policy paper advocating greater student access to January housing.

The policy paper—co-sponsored by UC president Andrea R. Flores ’10—recommends that students spending at least 20 hours a week on “structured, scheduled activity” be eligible for campus housing during the period.

Monday’s announcement stated that there would be no academic programming for the January period and that housing would be limited to students who could demonstrate a “need to be on campus.”

Council leadership received the finalized January decision by e-mail less than an hour before the student body did, giving the UC essentially no time to respond, according to a Council member who requested that their name not be used to preserve their relationships on and off the Council.

The UC’s policy paper, which was in the works prior to the announcement, will now serve as the Council’s effort to influence policy and potentially as its official position on the issue.

With the major budget cuts and freezes at Harvard, few students said they were surprised that the College would not want to spend more money on January programming. But some students said they had hoped the administration would allow students to stay on campus over break to participate in activities organized by student groups, such as the Institute of Politics.

If housing is provided during January “students will plan things—just as we plan great things in term time,” said Mary K. B. Cox ’10, president of the IOP’s Student Advisory Committee.

But Monday’s announcement cast doubt on that possibility.

College Dean Evelynn M. Hammonds and Faculty of Arts and Sciences Dean Michael D. Smith wrote in an e-mail to the student body, “[F]rom January 10 through January 22, only students with a recognized and pre-approved need to be on campus will be permitted to return to college housing.”

The e-mail further stated that, “Students who need to be on campus may potentially include varsity athletes, international students, thesis writers, students conducting lab-based research, and others who cannot reasonably accomplish their work in another location.”

But the e-mail left uncertain how “need” will be assessed, and defining the standard is one of the main tasks of the UC’s policy paper.

“We recommend that the College’s philosophy in housing students during January 2010 not be focused on if students absolutely need to be on campus, but rather on if students will benefit from being on campus for a certain activity,” the paper stated. The document will be submitted to a vote of the entire Council on Sunday,

Jon T. Staff ’10, the UC’s former SAC chair, said that considering the outcome, the Council was “probably not proactive enough” in the decision-making process for the J-term.

Tamar Holoshitz ’10, the current SAC chair, defended the UC and said it was difficult for the Council to make substantive suggestions without knowledge of the University’s budget.

Administrators had shown “quite a bit of ambiguity,” she said, because they had not heard from the Finance office what would be possible for J-term when they initially spoke with UC representatives.

Both Holoshitz and Flores said they did not fault the UC or the deans for communication problems, which they said were more systemic in nature.

“There should have been more of a formal structure put in place to research ideas and feasibility for next year’s J-term,” Holoshitz said.

Transparency of the decision-making process would have facilitated UC involvement, Flores said.

“The problem is more of the system than either the decision makers or the UC,” she added.

—Staff writer Eric P. Newcomer can be reached at newcomer@fas.harvard.edu.