In the weeks leading up to the contract signing, the living wage campaign held a series of actions in support of Local 254.

At one rally, about 30 demonstrators stormed the seventh-floor Holyoke Center office of Roberts, the lead negotiator for the University. They were turned away at the door by Harvard University Police Department officers but continued marching and chanting in the corridor for about 10 minutes.

Roberts says student activism did not play a role in the actual negotiations.

"In terms of the issues raised in those negotiations, the answer would have to be no," she wrote in an e-mail.

But other administrators say student activism has affected the general atmosphere in which negotiations take place.

"To pull out a single strand is a very difficult thing to do. It's a piece of the environment in which the negotiations are carried out," says Merry Touborg, director of communications for the office of human resources.

Associate Vice President for Administration Polly Price says student activism "probably" affected the contract negotiations with Local 254.

"We still weigh the same factors. To the extent that there is student activism [it] is one of the factors that we weight," she says.