University police patrolled the entrance to the University Board of Trustees meeting this weekend in an effort to prevent overcrowding and thwart possible student disruption.

"A police presence in the outside lobby is the way one succeeds in not having halls that are overly crowded," said University President Bryce Jordan at a news conference Saturday.

Overcrowding is a dangerous situation that has occurred at past board meetings, he said.

Bruce Kline, manager of support operations, said all sets of doors to the Keller Conference Center were locked except the main entrance. He said other doors were locked only to help University police prevent people carrying items such as placards from entering.

"If the officers stationed at that entrance opened the doors for people, it was probably out of courtesy," he added.

It is unnecessary for the public to know how many officers were stationed at the conference center, Kline said.

"It's not abnormal to have at least two or three officers at the trustee meetings," he added.

University Police Services were geared for a large crowd Friday in case protesters from the open budget/tuition freeze rally filtered northward to Keller Conference Center, Officer Bob Bennett said. The Undergraduate Student Government rally was held on the steps of Old Main.

About 15 -- or half of the rally's participants -- proceeded to the trustees meeting, though no problems arose, he said.

"(The students) were all able to get seats in the back of the room," he added.

The rally's organizers said they believed cold weather kept many students away from the event, which called for a tuition freeze and a line-by-line public University budget.

Bennett, who was stationed at the entrance, said the doors were unlocked. "The doors were open. It hasn't been unusual in the past for trustee meetings to be overcrowded -- that's why we were there," he said.

Bennett did not know how many police officers were stationed at the conference center's entrance and on the fourth floor, but said their duty was to be on the look-out for "anything and everything."