“Nobody knows where the line is for Ad Boarding,” Carlson said. “That just causes fear among the student body.”

But Katz defended the policy’s wording. “It’s good that they are leaving some of this up to the autonomy of the Houses to deal with things as they see fit,” she said.

DRINKING PROBLEM

The College’s new policy seems to be unlike anything that has come before it. While predecessors do exist, they are brief or hard to find.

The 2011-2012 Handbook for Students offers guidelines about drugs and alcohol that are much shorter than the policy released Friday. By searching Google, students can also find a more detailed form of the old alcohol policy in a document titled “Alcohol and Drug Policy for RD manual” on a Harvard iSite website

Friday’s announcement marks the culmination of a year-long effort by the College to universalize its inconsistently enforced alcohol policy. In March 2011, Dean of the College Evelynn M. Hammonds began taking quiet steps to crack down on campus drinking, publishing an op-ed in The Crimson about alcohol use the day before the alcohol-soaked illicit tradition of River Run. She also sent a memo to House Masters instructing them to enforce the College’s alcohol policy more consistently.

Later that month, the Pforzheimer HoCo canceled its biannual Pfoho Golf event, where groups of students traveled to designated rooms, called “holes,” which offered alcoholic and non-alcoholic refreshments. The House Masters said that the event did not adhere to the College’s ID-checking policy for House-sponsored events.

The month ended with Dean of Student Life Suzy M. Nelson’s announcement banning hard liquor at off-campus House formals.

Amid these reforms, the College convened an alcohol policy committee that spring and charged the group of administrators and students with drafting new guidelines for on-campus drinking.

—Staff writer Nathalie R. Miraval can be reached at nmiraval@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.