The faculty support for the students occupying the building manifested itself in the response to missed work and classes.

Professors and teaching fellows chose to lead class outside the open Mass. Hall windows. While HUPD rules did not permit anything but food inside the building, some professors risked arrest to deliver smuggle papers and books to the students inside.

The first real suggestion of a resolution came at an emergency faculty meeting called on April 27 to discuss the sit-in, at which Rudenstine announced his intention to form a new committee to reexamine issues of low-paid workers at Harvard.

As a result of the decision to reopen the issue, 12 out of the 13 House Masters issued a second open letter, this time calling on PSLM members to end the sit-in.

“We believe that students have brought this phase of their campaign to a successful completion and we urge them to come out of Massachusetts Hall in a peaceable fashion, to permit normal life to return to the premises, and to allow the orderly work of the University to resume,” the letter read.

Momentum built over the next week as PSLM members--who said they had not yet been approached with any official agreement--remained in the building.

The largest rally at Harvard in at least a decade--billed by PSLM members as “unprecedented”--managed to attract about 1,100 supporters to hear AFL-CIO’s Sweeney offer PSLM a “message of support.”

The students also won more visible support from local union chapters. An evening rally of about 250 dining hall workers spilled over into Mass. Ave. Chanting, “The people united, will never be divided,” dining hall workers and supporters occupied the Mass. Ave median strip, dodging through traffic as passing cars honked in support.

PSLM members said they drew inspiration from the unexpected outpouring of support from workers, many of whom joined the daily noon rallies during their lunch breaks, wearing crimson work jackets and chanting.

“It was an exciting place to be,” Bartley said. “I miss the activity, even just on the cultural level of seeing stuff that isn’t the pristine Harvard Yard,” Bartley said.

But as “tent city” spread across the Yard and rallies continued to attract record numbers, administrators began to take measures against what they deemed a threat to both security and the sanity of the students preparing for finals in surrounding Yard dorms.

Increased security concerns over the outsiders the protesters were attracting and an assault on a security guard prompted administrators to close the Yard between 9 p.m and 7 a.m., and only allow people with Harvard ID’s into the area.

In addition, citing “intolerable” noise levels around the occupied Mass. Hall, Dean of the College Harry R. Lewis ’68 banned amplification in the Yard beginning May 7 for the remainder of the academic year.

Just two days later, more than 24 hours of negotiations came to a close as PSLM members announced that they had reached an agreement with the University and would leave the occupied administrative building.

The exit came with the promise of a new committee, which will be chaired by Professor of Economics Lawrence Katz.