"I think we're going to work it out by next season," he said.

Although HDS is aware of the possibility of purchasing UFW-approved grapes should a majority of students vote for the second ballot option today, representatives from HDS "haven't made any contact" with Nash-De Camp, said Alexandra McNitt, a project manager with HDS, in a recent e-mail to The Crimson.

"We'll see how the vote comes out and take it from there," she said.

Many involved with the debate have raised the issue of the symbolic importance of Harvard's decision on grapes in the context of the larger boycott and UFW movement.

"When you make choices like this, you don't make them in a vacuum," said Marshall Ganz '66-'92, an instructor at the Kennedy School of Government who worked for the UFW from 1965-1981 and directed the union's organizing efforts under Cesar Chavez.

"If students vote to get rid of the boycott, there will be newspaper stories in California about how Harvard students have turned their back on farm workers," Ganz said. "Then the growers will translate them into Spanish, they'll turn them into leaflets and they'll pass them out on all the farms where the union is trying to organize as evidence that the union has no support."

"On the other hand, if there were stories saying Harvard students upheld the boycott, the union will turn that into leaflets and say 'We're not alone, people support us,'" Ganz said.

Adam R. Kovacevich '99, chair of the ad-hoc Grape Coalition, had a different viewpoint.

"We are a potential consumer of food products just like any university or hospital or business," Kovacevich said, "and I think it's arrogant to claim that Harvard students' position on this issue will cause some sort of monumental improvement."

Grossman, the director of the UFW's press division, agreed that the "prominence" of Harvard would carry symbolic weight, but conceded that today's decision would have little economic impact on major grape growers.

"It's not going to make the table grape industry do the right thing," he said.

With the revision of the ballot options, the outcome of today's vote is far from clear.

In a voluntary straw poll of 142 students who visited The Crimson Web site before Nov. 21, 65 percent of students favored grapes, 30 percent voted against them, and five percent were undecided.

In an updated voluntary on-line poll of 209 students taken by The Crimson last night, 60 percent of students said they wanted grapes to return to the dining halls, 36 percent said they were against and four percent had no opinion