The Medical College of Georgia might be poised to join the state's two largest universities in calling on the state Board of Regents to extend health insurance benefits to domestic partners.

Faculty members in the medical college will vote online on the resolution.

The beneficiaries mostly would be opposite-sex couples living together but not legally married, though same-sex couples also would be eligible.

If the faculty endorses the resolution, MCG President Dan Rahn will take it to the regents, said Bill Andrews, a faculty member at MCG and vice chair of the school's Academic Council.

The Academic Council decided to ask for the vote in May, and Mr. Andrews told faculty members last week in an e-mail about it.

University of Georgia President Michael Adams and Georgia State University President Carl Patton last year forwarded similar resolutions to the regents. In October, elected faculty councils at both schools unanimously endorsed offering benefits to domestic partners, but the regents haven't taken up the issue.

"We have taken them under advisement," said University System of Georgia spokesman John Millsaps.

The regents ignored calls for domestic partner benefits in 2001 and 2002, when faculties at GSU, UGA and several other public universities called on the regents to approve such benefits.