MEDFORD--After leaving the administration building early Saturday morning in a dramatic climax to their three-day sit-in, a group of Tufts University students yesterday continued their struggle to secure tenure for Assistant Sociology Professor Peter Dreier and to change the university's tenure process.

About 250 students, according to one protester's estimate, met outside Tufts President Jean Mayer's home yesterday to express their continuing support for the professor and to plan further action regarding tenure changes.

The protesters also discussed a joint proposal made Friday by the university administration and the sit-in steering committee. Sophomore David Riker said yesterday that "no one was satisfied" with that proposal.

Under the terms of the motion, the president would recommend to the Faculty of Arts and Sciences at a meeting on May 9 that it establish a faculty/student committee to review the tenure process at Tufts.

"None of us felt that it was adequate," said Riker. "We wanted something more tangible," he added.

Riker explained that the student group established 10 committees to consider the various aspects of the tenure issue. Some groups will meet to make amendments to the proposal at hand, while others will try to persuade Tufts students to withhold their contributions to the senior class pledge drive until the administration agrees to these amendments.

Although many students will continue their efforts to protest the administration's refusal to grant tenure to Dreier, "the group is more interested in focusing its energies on the tenure process in general," said Riker.

Asked about the students' efforts, Tufts Provost Sol Gittleman said, "The astonishing thing is how little students know about the tenure process," adding that students "just don't know what the tenure process is."

But Gittleman said, "I don't know why we can't open the tenure process up a little more."

Departure

The exit at 2:20 a.m. of more than 200 protesting students from the building, Ballou Hall, capped off about five hours of tension-filled debate over the proposal and whether it provided sufficient reason for the students sitting in--or "clumping," as their form of protest is known--to leave the building.

"This is a total victory for the students," said senior Daniel Poor, a protest leader, after the protesters had left Ballou, adding that "although the administration applied force, we didn't let that affect our democratic process."

Poor referred to the administration closing the building earlier in the evening, forbidding those who left it to return, and to the stationing of 15 Tufts policemen around the building. Despite this apparent threat of police action. Poor said, "We were not coerced" into leaving the building.

After walking out of the building with candles in their hands before a crowd of several hundred student onlookers, the protesters formed a large circle in the center of the campus and began to sing "If I Had a Hammer."

Several participants called the sit-in "very beautiful." One, citing the spirit of beautiful." One, citing the spirit of the group, likened it to "a fraternity in the best sense."