Graduate student Stephen Stose, who himself took the pledge as a senior at Manchester, first alerted Harvard students to the idea earlier this year. Stose contacted several student leaders via e-mail, asking them to bring the pledge to the attention of Harvard seniors. Stose is working with students at other Boston-area colleges, such as Tufts, MIT and Brandeis, to spark a city-wide movement for the pledge.

The Harvard group plans to make its major push during senior week when representatives will be tabling at Quincy and Cabot Houses. Organizers will be handing out pledge sheets and ribbons to seniors during breakfast and lunch.

"We're trying to be low pressure because we don't want people to feel bad about doing it," Stevens said. "But at the same time we want to give everyone the opportunity to do it if they want to."

Will the pledge catch on? Stevens says she will sign it when she graduates--but she is concerned about the pledge's future at Harvard.

"Hopefully we can keep it going over the next couple of years," Stevens said. Unfortunately, experience warns that the pledge may lose steam over the years, she said.

"That's the problem with this sort of thing, it gets going one year and then it just sort of dies off," Stevens said.