Sherman Holcombe, Shop Steward of the Radcliffe dining halls, sat at home all day Thursday awaiting the verdict on his suspension. It had already spanned seven days, and, as Holcombe tells it, "things just didn't look too good."

So when the phone rang, and Frances E. Sweeney, manager of the dining halls, told him that the University had decided to reinstate him effective Monday, he was justifiably jubilant.

It was only when Holcombe read Sweeney's reinstatement that he realized his victory was only partial. Sweeney reinstated him without back pay, and with a stern warning that more severe punishment may follow if his future behavior is less than exemplary.

Holcombe now says the strict provisions of the reinstatement may force him to resign the post of shop steward. "I feel like I'm on parole," he said last week.

The decision to reinstate Holcombe capped a week of student and Faculty activisim on his behalf.

On Sunday, only 23 of a possible 300 students ate brunch in the dining halls serviced by the North House kitchen, ostensibly in protest of Holcombe's suspension--many of the students who observed it said they did so more because of peer pressure than deep-seated conviction.

But meanwhile, Holcombe will be returning to work on Monday, and this, he said, makes him happy. And he won't have to worry about a repeat of last Tuesday's incident, at least immediately. A spokesman for the Radcliffe dining halls said yesterday that mixed vegetables, not cauliflower, will be served at Monday's dinner.